Organ River

Before there were roads, people travelled by water. Lakes, rivers, and streams brought people together. With travellers came new objects and new ideas. Inside St. Nicholai Church, the video work Organ River is on display. A pump organ is transported on the flowing waters of the river.

The artist herself says that the Finnish cultural history can be summarized with the pump organ. She sees it as a magical instrument that, with its lungs, becomes its own organism.

The first pump organs were built over two hundred years ago. With the public school, the church and popular movements, pump organs were spread to every small village and school. For a long time, they became a kind of cultural infrastructure.