I’ve written before about Sajos, the Saami cultural centre and Parliament at Inari. Here is its outside now, facade and symbolic herding fence weathering nicely into attractive greys.

In my post of 2016/12/22, I illustrated and briefly discussed the art in the interior of Sajos, especially in the cafe. Now the latter has almost all been disposed of, so that blog nearly 2 years ago has quickly acquired extra and unexpected value as a record of what once was:

     

One of the art motifs on a table top  in 2016.     Remnants of motifs on the windows above bare table tops in 2018.

 

The second arty incident – not to be taken too seriously – on this Lapland trip was during a short trek across bog and through forest in an enjoyable but ultimately vain attempt to reach the top of Otsamo, a low local eminence. The top may have been only 3k from the carpark but the last 500m up a steepening rocky incline – note how the contour lines get close together on the map below – defeated me.

 

 

 

Anyway, on the way back we tried to adopt the ‘animalistic’ approach to our surroundings, as learnt from the exhibition in Rovaniemi (see previous blog). It was not difficult: once you started looking for animals and even human faces in the pools and rocks around us, it quickly became apparent that we were surrounded by spirits and shades of Other Worlds, watching our every step perhaps to guard us but more probably awaiting us make a slip.

                          

Among our slightly sinister companions were fierce-looking birds, strange water-creatures, and

                                         

anthropomorphic faces with staring eyes and narrow, slit mouths. We even noted a broken tree-trunk with a possible face, perhaps a seida (see previous blog) – but this way surely madness lies, though perhaps not more so than in the mad world outside this forest fantasy.