Kotikutoinen – Homespun

Disassembled rag rug and iron bed

In the past, Kivinokka was the summer paradise for the working class, where temporal cottages and huts were built for the summer using any material available. At times, when apartments were short of, these huts were the only home for the homeless. Although nowadays permanent ones, Kivinokka is still a place for the city people to spent the summer in their cottages and in nature. It is an unique tradition that have been continuous since the beginning of 20th century.

In the wake of this tradition, I transformed a rag rug and iron bed into a temporal hut of my own for the summer period. These objects, found from dumpsters in Kivinokka, were left there by the residents who had done spring cleaning in their cottages. The work connotes cottage culture and the change in its tradition  reflecting the transition between the history and presence of Kivinokka with its sympathetic and melancholy homespun aesthetics.

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Liisa Ahlfors (b. 1985) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She has graduated from the Tampere University of Applied Sciences in Fine Art in 2011. Currently she is a first year MA student in environmental art in Aalto University.