I have already written about the ‘Sajos’ building in northern Finland (below 24 November, 2016). This further note is specifically about some of its artistic contents.

This gold cascade tumbles down the vertically-grooved wooden wall of the circular ‘Parliament’ room. Gold-mining has been an important if irregular industry in the area over the last two centuries and persists today on a very small scale (mainly for tourists and holiday-makers).

 

 

 

The restaurant is themed on indigenous art: may be this is just interior decoration rather than art. The images are all authentic, though obviously they are copies of originals. They occur on the walls, the windows and the glass table tops. Because of the reflections caused by the wall-lighting, they were difficult to photograph.

Here is a selection which shows that the art is firmly rooted in everyday local life: fishing (I love the depiction of a duck trapped in a net as well as fish), hunting, camping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though still figurative, some of the art is apparently a little more symbolic: why in this image is there a moose in (?) a hill with reindeer on its slopes and surmounted by a cross?

I cannot ‘read’ this last one at all; but then I know nothing of Lappish art. Something else to find out about.