Lauri Linna

There's a Hidden Treasure 

A Temporary Monument for The Adventurous

Smell of sweat. Little boys legs scuffed by too many falls. Sandy snot on the cheeks. Here's an interesting looking twig, what could it be transformed into? Some blueberry stains on a pink fabric. Run until your legs are mush.

Wrinkled hands pick yellow berries quickly. The thorns of the berry bush make little red markings on the sensitive skin. At home the berries are put inside a plastic container. Frozen and forgotten. When the spring comes the berries will be carried to a larger plastic container outside the apartment building. From there they will be taken to some other place that we know nothing about.

A man is standing on a cliff, there's some woods growing just behind. He is smoking. He gently licks his lips. Looks at you. Nods a little, drops the cigarette, steps on it and puts his hands inside his trouser pockets. Man goes in to the woods. You follow. 

The fog is setting to the lower desolate fields. We hear sounds that we do not understand. 

We come and go to forests, parks, wastelands and seashores looking for something, longing, needing or wanting. We take for granted a lot of spaces that we go thru. We really seldom understand the value of the places we go to, and really blindly go thru without noticing the possibility of finding a treasure. At any point, at any time there's a treasure to be found. In people, in the surroundings, in what ever. 

You can visit the Temporary Monument for The Adventurous at Hermannin rantapuisto in Helsinki. 

It's there to remind the passersby to look always further and possibly to see beauty in the mundane.

Look for this sign.