I SUBJECT Wood and forest as part of the Finnish and European way of life and identity. II PRODUCTION Pictures and text or object and text. Three levels. 1.The student‘s subjective view of the subject; how she/he sees the subject herself/himself. 2.Facts about the subject that is dealt with. 3.Linking the subject to the wider context of culture, history and the concepts of art and industrial art. III WAY OF WORKING It‘s very important that the students are actively involved in the project and try to co-operate with each other. They could exchance information and pictures by ordinary mail or e-mail. Visits could be arranged between the schools involved in the project. These visits could be some kind of culmination of all the work and effort. IV GENERAL IDEAS It´s important that the students are able to analyze the different levels of the work. So that they can approach the subject holistically, not only subjectively. "Wood and forest" are many-sided subject and it can be studied for example regarding nature, one‘s relation to nature, art, industry, history, environment and myths. The students should try to combine material based both knowledge and experience. Midsummer in Finland -Myths, rites and magic Our project is about the ways people used to celebrate the longest day of the year here in Finland, and how they celebrate it today. The Midsummer or "Juhannus" as we here call it, has long traditions in our country's history. Many different kinds of spells and rites palyed a big part in the celebration, and people still sometimes do them for laughs. We wanted to tell you about this celebration because it's really unique: they don't have "juhannus" in most European countries. Many of our Midsummer traditions are linked to the nature and the Finnish forests and in a way it shows how important the forest is, and always has been, for us Finns. As already mentioned, the Midsummer is celebrated on "The Nightless Night", the longest day of the year, when the sun doesn't go down at all. There's a real air of mystery around at the time, no wonder people used to think there was magic in the air. Besides, there's really no better place or time for a lovespell than a romantic walk in the mistily alighted forest, is there? The midnight sun and the birchwoods, and the Midsummer at whole, are a big part of our national identity, and so a bottomless well of inspiration. To demonstrate the old rites and customs, we decided to use video. We dressed in old clothes and went to the countryside to shoot the scenes, which did end up more like a comedy or a farce than anything else… but hey, wasn't meant to be serious, was it? It was difficult choosing wich ones to take to video, as there are zillions of different rites in our history. The ones we chose were either the most famous ones or the funniest ones. Most of the rites were lovespells, which young un-married women performed to find a man, but many were also to find out more about the secret lives of the fairies and gnomes and to gain riches. We also used digital camera for our project. It was the best for illustrating the midsummer bonfire (they have one in every single town and village here at that day). Unfortunately our example wasn't such a big bonfire as they usually are, but you can still get the point. There are also pictures from a smokesauna (they're a bit dusky, though) and a photoseries from the making of a saunavihta. Saunavihta is also a fanous custom. Vihta is a bunch of birchtwigs that we use for hitting each other in the sauna. It's really good for your bloodcirculation. Of course, we use vihtas all the time, but the best ones are made of the fresh birches of Midsummer. We hope that this project helps people from other countries to learn to know the Finnish Midsummer traditions and we would love to know if there are any similar feasts in the summerculture of the Central-Europe. Linda Mäkelä and Tuuli Virta FinnForest Wanderer There are two of us doing this project, Henri Äijälä and Joni Koskimaa. We’ve started to make an entire game, with upper-perspective 2D graphics. It is in many ways multimedia, for we are making musics and graphics, writing the storyline and drawing comics. That’s mostly Henri’s duty to draw the comics although we design them together. The game is supposedly ready somewhere after/before christmas, and we expect it to show how we deal with forests and how they changed our lives ages ago, when the 1st Swedes came for a crusade. I remember they (the Swedish crusaders) somewhat failed, but they made other attempts as well. I would say they were succesful in the end. After all, we are christians nowadays. The story this far: Ilmari Sepänpoika, the main character, is a huge man who lives somewhere deep in the forests. He has a little cabin where he spends his days alone, making alcohol and chopping woods. Two times every year he takes some big cans of his fine, famous beer, and walks to the neares town (that’s something like 200 kilometers away…), hunts down a few animals in the way, and sells the furs and his beer in the market-happening. Well, not the year the game takes place. When he arrives to the town called "Pellonpieli" (the-edge-of-a-field in English), he sees a few hanging trees with tree men hung there. He drops a can he’s carrying and says: "Mitä perkelettä" (what-the-demon??) That’s how it begins – a few Swedish crusaders try to capture him but Ilmari hasn’t thought it going just like that. So he picks up his axe… There you start the playing. So, all the storyline in the game is told by GREAT comics! And, the musics will be MP3:s! That is about all… the game will be about, well less than 10 megabytes, and should run smoothly on a computer like P200, 32mt RAM. Joni Koskimaa (Programming, some music, graphics) Henri Äijälä (Comics, some music, soundeffects) |
