Casagrande Laboratory

1000 White Flags

Landscape installation realized in Koli Nature Park, summer 2000 1000 White Flags made of sheets from mental hospitals on three meters long iron bars mounted to a downhill-skiing range in Koli Nature Park in order to celebrate the madness of the businessmen who cut down the ancient forest in this one of Finlands most beautiful spots. Winning entry of a national competition. A protest against the development of Finland’s Koli National Park as a cross-country ski resort. In the summer of 2000, after collecting unwanted sheets from psychiatric hospitals around the country Casagrande & Rintala made 1000 White Flags to punctuate the verdant landscape of one ski-slope as a gesture of surrender to insanity.  The anarchic environmental art work won the first price of the national landscape art competition Settlement and launched the natural restoration process of the national park’s ancient forests.