Red is the colour of your life

I am interested in the distinction between what is visible and what we can’t see. In my work "Red is the Colour of Your Life", this distinction also tells about the beautiful, useful and the dangerous in nature.

RED IS THE COLOUR OF YOUR LIFE

The bedrock of the Aland Islands, Finland, consists almost entirely of red rapakivi granite. The stone is everywhere–used in roads, old churches, new house grounds etc. Smoothly shaped archipelago cliffs create together with the sea a positive self-identity and attract tourists.

All granites contain uranium, but the rapakivi contains an elevated amount. Uranium decays into radon, a smell- and colour free cancer provoking gas that gets into houses. Due to the geological situation, building techniques and, climate, the amount of radon in indoor air is higher in Finland than in most other countries.

Every year, according to the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, approximately 300 Finns are diagnosed with lung cancer because of exposure to radon. Very few islanders test the indoor air or household water for Becquerel, though it is known that the houses that have been tested here have a higher amount of radon than the average in Finland.

We often keep on living with something, or someone, though we know it can be bad for us. Because we want to, because we don’t have a choice or maybe we just don’t want to know? Usually, this something is perhaps unhealthy eating or drinking or an untrue lover, but what happens when it is the place where we live?

I am interested in the distinction between what is visible and what we can’t see. Here this distinction also tells about the beautiful, useful and the dangerous in nature.

I have photographed portraits of backs and bedrock. These backs are backs of family members. My mum has had lung cancer. Friends, neighbors, and my dad have died young from cancer. To me, the back and the bedrock is a supposed core.

The work includes an animated movie I made of a picture of a radon spectrum, every element in the periodic table has an emission spectrum of its own, like a fingerprint. It will be shown in Helsinki at Gallery Hippolyte in May and at the Museum of Cultural History of the Aland Islands in September 2019.

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Rapakivi is an internationally used name for younger granites. There are three rapakivi masses in Finland, the Aland Islands is one. The mineral is magmatic and can also be found in USA, Brazil, China, Sweden and many other parts of the world. The Aland Islands arouse about 1580 million years ago when a huge crack in the earth surface opened and let an enormous amount of melted rapakivi out.