Lakes of Finland

2014

Silkscreen, 84 x 118 cm, edition of 20.

Finland is referred to as the country of a thousand lakes. The names of 400 of the largest ones are catalogued in general lists. This work employs the conventions we deal with using geographic data, and it plays with naming natural phenomena in general. Lakes of Finland addresses forms of representation in maps and charts that we are acquainted with from cartography, biology or encyclopaedias. The ability ‘to see something as something’ (Wittgenstein) – as we try to read outlines as images – are also familiar from psychology and ink blots used by Rorschach.
While the names are the actual names of lakes in Finland, the shapes of the lakes are invented – they are 1:1 ink paintings.