”Two lynxes have walked in the fresh snow deep into the fir-woods. My year in the forest could not have started in a better way. I let the cats lead me into the shelter of the big trees, then I take aim for the pond on the shores of which I make my camp. The pond lies in the centre of a protected area of about two hundred hectares, a woodland shattered by small waters, where the hilly pine-woods and the shadowy spruce-woods seek their peers in my home-area. I am far away from the influence of fields and inhabited lands. Here peace reigns. When I stop, I hear only my own heart-beats. No traffic-noise, no whining from forest-machines or chain-saws. It is the winter solstice, one of the special days of the ancient year. The old year dies and a new one grows in its stead. The slowly growing trajectory of the sun begins to nibble at the power of darkness, but the longest night of the year is still ahead.”
A project lasting the cycle of one year (December 21st 2009 – December 21st 2010), during which I spent all the time that I could in one particular forest. I sat and pondered about the world’s goings on, I took photographs if I felt like it, and sensed the old forest surrounding me.
The forest-year gave birth both to a book and to a museum-exhibition, where all the pictures were taken precisely in that forest and during that one-year-cycle. The book has a Swedish edition: “Skogsråret”.
Buy the book
You can order the book from heikki.willamo@gmail.com