Lydia Toivanen

I once got lost during the Summer Services. I was about ten years old. It was evening and I was at my cousins’ tent. I realized that my red strap wristwatch had stopped and my homecoming time had long since passed. I left for the other side of the Summer Services area where the campsite of our family was located. The sounds of sermons and families with children echoing over the field had quieted down. I couldn’t even find a single landmark that would help me find back to the right camper. I was in the middle of a sleeping, white, sea of thousands of campers and trailers, and I saw no sign of our family’s camp. A panic! Scared and heart pounding, I stopped two strangers. Are you lost, they asked.

I don’t know how long we went from one area to another, along quiet paths lined with tents and caravans, until suddenly a familiar figure appeared ahead. My brother! “Where have you been?!” Then I recognized the surroundings and started running towards our camp without looking behind me or saying a word to my companions. I took off my shoes and got into the dark and quiet mobile home, where I made out the outlines of my parents at the table. Did you get lost, asked the father. I fell to my knees and burst into tears.

My nuclear family consists of fourteen people, parents and twelve children. Our extended family has a total of 182 one-on-one relationships between family members. When you include all of posterity and different variations, the figure is significantly bigger. We sensitively gather to form a single group, either consisting of the whole family or variable formations. As time passes, individuals grow older, and the family grows. Worldviews, roles and dynamics change constantly. I’ve been documenting these changes for two decades, almost without realizing it.

The installation refers to a family camp that has been built in changing configurations for decades in the Summer Services area. The family camp is a gathering place and platform for discussion, as well as a symbol of our family’s community spirit and diversity. The camp is a delimited area, a territory that embodies the intangible heritage of our home, security and affection, but also rebellion and change. Collective and personal emotional memories of summer services are layered into the smell of wood chips.

             Conservative Laestadianism is the largests revival movement in Finland. 

       The Summer Services is an annual summer event that gathers some 80,000 guests.

The exhibition has been supported by the Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation.