I flew to Helsinki for the weekend to visit my aunt who lives in the part of the city called Vuosaari. When we were strolling through Uutela nature park she told me about the finnish artist Miina Äkkijyrkkä who used to live there. Äkkijyrkkä is her artist name and means precipitous, if this is referring to her art or her person I don’t know. For fifteen years she rented a farm in the park from the municipality and lived there with her cows and cats. The cows were her inspiration and she made huge sculptures out of parts of old cars. She also made the pattern Unelmia (means dream) for Marimekko. Eventually she was forced to leave because the place looked like a garbage dump, it was a huge controversy in Finland. How can there be art without a little bit of a mess?

We walked up to one of the houses to take a closer look at the sculptures. The house looked like nobody lived there for years, the ground covered with garbage. Rusty metal, old mattresses, large pieces of plastic and wood and on top of one of the piles a grinning cow cranium. Suddenly a sturdy lady with long blond hair and piercing blue eyes appeared from nowhere screaming at us. Apparently she still lived there, in hiding from the police who tried to force her out. She refused to leave since there weren’t anywhere for her to go with her sculptures. When she understood that we were just there admiring her work she cooled down, trying to get us to buy instead. But when my aunt asked the prize of one of the smaller cow heads she blurted out – 25 000 €. I’m not sure she will sell very much with prices like that, but maybe that isn’t her intention. I’m not sure what to think about this lady, but one has to admire people who have the guts to create something beautiful even if it seems crazy to others. She truly is a gifted artist, there’s no question about that.