EnvironmentalArt.net

Back home,Visual Artist Lea Turto Email: turto@pp.nic.fi

The Street Gallery of Huittinen 2000

Plastic Garden 2. Park of The Municipal
Health Centre in Huittinen, 2000

Plastic Garden 1. Kirkkopuisto,
Huittinen 2000

Kivinokka 2004

Plastic Garden 2004, Kivinokka, Helsinki

Plastic Garden 2004, Kivinokka, Helsinki
Photo:Marja Hakaka

Plastic Garden 2004, Kivinokka, Helsinki

Plastic Garden

Plastic Garden 2004, Kivinokka, Helsinki. Photo: Marja Hakala

Here are some photographs of my work: an installation of 12,000 plastic spoons, knives and forks.

On each occasion I produce a new version appropriate for the chosen setting. I first created it in Jyväskylä in 1998 and called it The Garden of Angels. It was situated in a park belonging to the Church.

I was dressed in black. In art history, death has been depicted as a skeleton cloaked in black. I noticed the sexual connotations of this symbolic figure. The scythe is appropriate for the masculine figure. I chose a black baby carriage as a symbol for death.

It was like a performance. I looked odd and members of the public came to talk to me. It looked like I was planting flowers and several people came to ask : What are these new flowers? They were surprised to find that my flowers were plastic and had no life. The public also took part in "planting" the plastic flowers.

One of my concerns was: If we try to dominate Nature, what will happen? We can control plastic gardens, but we will lose all the wildness by applying too much control.
In 1999 I created a new version and exhibited it in the city of Vaasa, on a traffic island running along the centre of a street on a narrow strip of grass.

In the summer of 2000 I created two versions in The Street Gallery of Huittinen: one in June and a second installation in July called Plastic Garden. This one was created without dressing up and I took over the entire park.

The latest versions (2002) were installed by the Mätäjoki riverside and Kivinokka (2004), Helsinki.

Back home: