Cosmos

Site-specific public installation with ants, a red oak and a wooden structure
Kone Foundation, Saari Residence 
Mietoinen, Finland
2021– 

The cosmos is an image of the world in which physical entities and processes, as well as spiritual and scientific concepts, are intertwined. We inhabit a complex reality where our ideas have a profound impact on our present and future. Rantala’s practice draws on her long-standing interest in pre-Socratic philosophy, particularly Anaximander’s concept of the apeiron, the boundless force that sustains the continuous movement of the universe between chaos and order. The notion of the cosmos implies an understanding of the world as a layered and dynamic system.

At the site, ants have long inhabited the area around a large spruce, forming direct paths to nearby trees. In response, Rantala has introduced a wooden structure resembling a church, along with a path leading from it to an oak. These gestures evoke abstract systems of meaning as well as the symbolic figure of the Tree of Life. While the artist echoes structural principles of the cosmos, the ants and the oak remain the primary agents shaping the site.

Time is an integral dimension of the work. The oak continues to grow and will eventually extend over the structure, shedding its leaves onto its roof. What is now small will alter in scale, and the relationship between elements will shift. The structure itself may one day disappear, and the ants may move elsewhere. Until then, the wooden structure is treated with tar every other year, marking an ongoing attempt to preserve what is present, even as it inevitably changes.

Photographs by Jussi Virkkumaa

Read the text by Riikka Niemelä, contemporary art researcher:
“The Compositional Worlds of the Cosmos Artwork by Nina Rantala” → here