Field of Blood

Kaisa Salmi

”Field of Blood” sheds light on the culture of silence in the spirit of reconciliation. The performance ”Field of Blood” was held in Kouvola, in the exact area where the famous Finnish Civil War massacres took place in the spring of 1918. First, the executioners were the socialist Red Guard, killing more than one hundred conservative ”whites” on the ”blood fields” of Kouvola. Next, dozens of Reds Guards were executed and put in the same graves. Kouvola is considered one the centres of the most severe Red terror during the Finnish Civil War. The performance ”Field of Blood” is based on the documentations of the historical events in Kouvola as well as on memories and folklore of the local people. The performance belongs to a larger continuum of Salmi’s art works on the Finnish Civil War and is based on her doctoral dissertation on artistic research (Fellman’s Field, 2013). It is also a story of the family of Kari Harju, one of the 300 participants of the performance. He wanted to dig a grave on the clay field to reconciliation the trauma in his family. 

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Production Year
2016
Duration
00:07:28
Type
Single channel
Tags
community art, documentarism, documentation, experimental films, history, mass graves, performance (art forms), political art, traumas, wars
Original Title
Veripelto
English Title

Field of Blood

Production Countries
Finland
Dialogue
Yes
Sound
Yes
Cast
Kaisa Salmi (Author), Pietari Peltola (Cinematographer), Aarne Tapola (Cinematographer), Esa Kotilainen (Composer), Kaisa Salmi (Director), Heikki-Pekka Vaara (Editor), Kaisa Salmi (Producer), Kaisa Salmi (Script), Tuomas Skopa (Sound Design), Suvi-Sini Peltola (Actor), Kari Harju (Actor), Taiteen edistämiskeskus (Funder), Nordkalk (Funder), Studio Dance Pit (Funder), Koneen säätiö (Funder), Jättömaa ry (Funder), Samuel Hubers konststiftelse (Funder), Kouvolan taidemuseo (Funder)
Press Photos

Kaisa Salmi

Born: 1968

https://www.kaisasalmi.com

Kaisa Salmi (born 1968) is a Finnish community, environmental and spatial artist who is completing her doctoral thesis in contemporary art at Aalto University. Salmi is known for e.g. large-scale and eye-catching environmental art works, such as her huge arrangement of gerbera daisies on the Parliament steps in Helsinki and at Turku cathedral, the huge “plastic avalanche” sculpture that was made out of plastic waste and installed in front of Kamppi shopping centre in central Helsinki, and ”Fellman’s field”, which was a large performance involving 10,000 participants in the town of Lahti. A film was also made of this. In August 2013 she covered a street in the middle of the town of Oulu with 34,000 rose bushes. Salmi’s work has been recognized with a number of awards and she was chosen to be the Finnish Institute’s Finnish artist in Estonia in 2011.

3 works

Pump Room

Kaisa Salmi
2019 / 00:22:09 / Single channel

Field of Blood

Kaisa Salmi
2016 / 00:07:28 / Single channel

Fellmann's Field

Kaisa Salmi
2013 / 00:23:44 / Installation