Half-decayed house, Nivala, Finland

Visited by jonahi & skkye 7.12.2012. Nature had really taken control in this yellow house which was also located in the one-road mining village. Floors were hitting the pit and roof had collapsed in many places. Only the walls had remained somewhat upright. But inside the living room of the house stood still looking like everything else around wasn't falling down at all. There still were plastic flowers and lanterns on the windowsills and a tablecloth on the coffee table. That one room had decided not to surrender but to withstand, in every weather and wind, no matter if it was abandoned or not.

Weawing mill's storage (Part 2), Nivala, Finland

On the day we visited this warehouse, we woke up early and spent a few hours driving north through snowy views. I held my warm takeaway teacup and felt free and wished that we could drive further north, all the way to the Arctic ocean. But our destination was this half-deserted mining village in Northern Ostrobothnia, so there we went. I was a bit nervous if I could read our roadmap the right way and if we could get there before dark, but the place was easy to find. The days were very short that time of the year.

In the name of the truth, I was a bit disappointed about the village, because I had imagined more abandoned and less inhabited houses to the place. This warehouse was our first target to climb in from a window. There was many kind of stuff from tools to old sewing machines and containers for yarn dying. One room had scary hooks in the ceiling. They have probably been used for hanging yarns, but they looked like meat hooks to me. My favourite thing was that small bedroom in one corner of the house. Somebody had hung a sheet with a painted prayer to God on the light blue wall.

Weawing mill's storage (Part 1), Nivala, Finland

Visited by jonahi & skkye 7.12.2012. After long driving and travelling, arriving to our destination felt kind of strange. This old mining village was so empty, stagnant and quiet when I was used to gas stations' neon signs and variable views from the car window. In the village every other house was abandoned and every other had still life in it. The air was so clean that breathing felt the most enjoyable thing to do. A moment I felt that very strong need to move out of the city to some place where I can really breath, but same time I knew that I also need this pulse and rhythm of city living. In that empty mining village the time didn't really feel necessary, everything was so still and calm.

Weaving mill's storage was our first building to visit. My very favourite thing in the place was this head shaped from clay. Somehow it represented the most complete loneliness, it was totally forgotten and without use among all these other thousands of forgotten and meaningless things that someday just decay with the house. Someone had sacrificed time shaping it, someone with vision and maybe a huge feeling of pride with the result, and still it was there for us to find. It made me think all the forgotten things in the world that once had been somebody's dreams and visions. But maybe in creation the journey is more important than the destination: the head shaped from clay had already fulfilled its purpose when it had offered a great feeling of creation's joy to its designer.