Hi everyone! My theme inside the theme Making Visible is music. I got the idea when I saw a picture in a book, a picture of this Sibelius monument. It has been made for the honor of our national composer Jean Sibelius who, by the way, apparently was a synaesthete. I've seen the monument many times here in Helsinki but this time I suddenly started to think: "What do I hear when I look at this picture?" Combining different art forms has always interested me. I play the piano and sometimes playing and painting give me a similar feeling, a special kind of flow. I'm now picking up songs and pieces of music I want to make visible and trying to figure out how to do it. Does anyone else get really strong visual thoughts while listening to certain pieces of music? :)

Hi Karen! Nice to hear that others have similar experiences. :) I got to thinking about what you said about sensing the visual art more through your body. First it sounded odd, but then I realized that I feel it too sometimes. But it needs to be a very strong piece of art, something that really speaks to me. This always causes a strong need to touch and feel with hands. :)

Idiomi: Niin metsä vastaa kuin sinne huutaa. This idiom translates "The forest answers the same way you shout in it" and it means that the way you treat other people defines the way they treat you. This implies that one should treat other people well and with respect. I think this saying is very close to Jeesus's teatching of how to treat one another (that's why the Leonardo da Vinci's Last supper). Altough nobody has ever repeated these sayings to me, I think the idea has been a major part of my upbringing.

I think that Irmeli Huhta's image shows two colliding subjectivities; a traditional Finnish one and a Rom perspective. The picture is full of things that represent traditional, good Finnish way of life; The colors blue and white, the familiar Valio-logo, flowers and a glass of milk. The whole settings is from our traditional "milk girl -comercials" that have encouraged Finnish to drink milk, by showing a healthy young blond woman in a national outfit for a long time. But in the picture it is not a young blond girl in a Finnish traditional outfit, but a Rom girl in a Roma traditional outfit. These are vital things for understanding the meaning of this picture. The viewer should also know the status that Rom people have in our society and what kind of preconceptions are held towards them. I think this is a powerful picture that shows us that even those how think themselves liberal people can suddenly feel anxious within this picture. It forces people to question their thinking.