”Nature has always interested and fascinated me. As an artist I look for inspiration in nature a lot. Butterflies have constantly been present in my art. As a child I collected butterflies. All summer I dreamed I would catch an Old World Swallowtail. When at last I caught one, it was so beautiful I couldn’t put it in the jar filled with ether. Instead I let it go.”
- Ann Lundström
"I want to make a home, a safe place for the little animal, the insect. But where is the line in general between taking care of something and interfering in its life? You can never be sure whether the help is really help, or whether you should just let everything in life proceed on its own. However, I like to believe I am helping.”
- Tiina Vainio 
”Plants and animals are an important source of inspiration for me, both from a historical and literal viewpoint. I hope with my art I can look at and even question our attitudes to nature. For example in Norway we have very little beasts of prey, and the discussion around the few beasts has acquired similar characteristics to racist discourse.”
- Monika Wancke
”I have used natural materials, for example wood, cones, reeds and stalks when building the butterfly nests. Some of the materials I have gathered from the Botanical Garden in Ruissalo. I have followed the example of the caddisfly and the spionid worm among others in the building work, and I have used the techniques of these insects: hollowing, wrapping, weaving and fastening. I welcome the Brimostone moth, the Mourning Cloak and the Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly to make a nest in my box!”
- Katja Syrjä
Butterfly Villages
The Butterfly Villages are groups of artistic butterfly feeders and nesting boxes 8.6. - 30.8.2011
The international artist group has built artistic butterfly feeders and nesting boxes. Each artist has created their own village with its own distinctive visual features.
The greatest reason for the disappearance of many butterfly species is the decreasing of their habitats. The artists help butterflies to survive by creating feeding and nesting places for butterflies. These feeders and nesting boxes, the “villages”, are built of recycled and natural materials, for instance cones and old porcelain coffee cups.
The Butterfly Villages are created by four visual artists. Finnish-born Ann Lundström lives in Norway, and has graduated from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art. She works primarily with painting as her medium. MA Katja Syrjä lives in Åland, and often uses natural colors she makes of plants, mushrooms and earth in her works. Tiina Vainio is a visual artist and art pedagogue who lives and works in Turku. She makes works that often have environmental perspectives and she experiments with materials. The fourth artist of the Butterfly Villages is Monica Wancke, who was born in Sweden but graduated from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art in Norway. She uses mainly drawing as her medium, but also works with environmental and public art.
The art work is supported by the Finnish-Norwegian Foundation.
Back to Flux Aura 2011
Blogs
Turku 2011 magazine
Comments
There are currently no comments on this subjectWrite your own comment
Sign in or register to comment
Sign inRegister