Tree People

Between 2008 and 2009 Green Perspective Foundation organized a photo exhibition of Finish authors Sanni Seppo and Ritva Kovalainen in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. ‘Tree People’ provides a comprehensive picture of the traditional beliefs of finish ancestors concerning trees and forests and of the remnants of this tradition that Finns still carry within them. ‘Tree People’ describes what trees can offer people besides game animals and utility articles or raw material for industry. The exhibition is accompanied with interesting confessions of poeple whose fates are closely linked with trees even nowadays. These photos weren´t collected only from wandering through Finnland, Estonia and russian Karelia, but also archival footage was used depicting the period when forests still stretched in all directions for vast distances.

Names of the exhibition have undergone interestin changes during the journey from city to city, from the original name Puiden Kansa and english Tree People, from Stromy a ľudia (Prešov-march-2008; Banská Bystrica-april till may-2008), Stormy a lidé (Opava-Czech R.-july-2008), Stromy lidí (Cheb-Czech R.-august till september-2008) to the final slovak name Ľudia stromov, with which the exhibition returned to Slovakia (Liptovský Mikuláš-december-2008 till march-2009; Michalovce-march-2009).