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| pictures are screenprints from the first video in the documentation, published here in agreement with the maker Sirkka Turkki |
On the southern coast of Finland in the Uusimaa region, about 35 kilometers east of Helsinki. there is the municipality of Porvoo. It is the second oldest city in Finland, currently with around 50.000 inhabitants, about a third of whom have Swedish as their mother tongue.
The information panel shown above, installed along the Sillvikintie road, in the outskirts of the municipality, indicates that there is an art environment at that location.
Life and works
This art environment, referred to as Ruusulinna Taidepuisto (Art Park Rose Castle) was developed from the early 2000s by Sirkka Turkki, who was born in the mid-1940s.
After primary and secondary school, she studied at the University of Helsinki and at the JAMK University of Applied Science in Jyvaskyla in Central Finland, where she became familiar with applied arts.
Equipped with this knowledge, she was able to become a teacher in areas such as art education and creative activities, but she was also active in the field of physiotherapy. In addition to her professional work, she was also active as a poet, a painter and a ceramist.
In the early 2000s, while looking for a summer home, she found the spot where the art environment has now emerged, an outdoor area that also included a country house that had been unused for years and needed major renovation.
The two-hectare area which exudes a pleasant wooded atmosphere, now also houses a guest house and there are four different outbuildings, which are now full with a variety of creations. made by Sirkka Turkki over the course of her life.
As the image above shows, there is a large miniature city filled with a large number of handmade wooden houses, which is set up in the living room of the country house. All these buildings were made from pieces of wood from a wooden wall near an old farm.
There is also a collection of masks, as shown above left, which fills a section of the wall of one of the buildings.
The images above and below right show parts of the extensive collection of ceramics that SirkkaTurkki has produced over the years.
Finally, the image at the bottom left shows the collection of marionettes and glove puppets, hanging on a wall.
Indoors, the walls are decorated with drawings and paintings made by Sirkka Turkki, in short, a large number of forms of artistic expression are generously represented in this art environment.
Below, to conclude the variety of indoor creations, is another image of a sculpture of a lady, who looks a bit like Sirka Turkki.
In the outdoor area there are also spatial works of art that depict world religions, fairy tales and myths.
Sirkka Turkki, now in her late seventies, so far had a varied and versatile life. For example, she gave more than two hundred readings of the poetry she wrote.
Another noteworthy activity of hers is that she volunteered at an orphanage in Nepal, where, during a trip through the area, she took the opportunity to free young girls from the slavery in which they had ended up. They were admitted to the orphanage, now have an independent existence and Sirkka Turkki is still in contact with some of them.
Documentation
* Article (June 2022) on the website of newspaper Itäväylä
* Article by Heini Heikkilä on the website of MSL. the Finnish National Cultural Association
* Another entry on the MSL website, with some photos of the art environment
Videos
* Video (2022, YouTube, 5'25") by Sirkka Turkki
SirkkaTurkey,
Art park Rose Castle,
Sillvikintie 172,
06750 Porvoo, Uusimaa region, Finland
the site can be visited In the summer,
visits of individuals or groups (max 6 persons) must be arranged in advance (see info).
small entrance fee
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