Hakkila Community Art Park (Hakkilan yhteisötaidepuisto)

In 2022, a celebration of community art was held at Hakkila Community Art Park, and as part of it Shadow Room designed and ran a participatory art workshop for Hyvän mielen ministeriö.

The starting point of the workshop was a question: How can the value of a forest be multiplied a hundredfold without felling any trees?

Together as an association, we painted a forest floor almost 20 metres wide on the wall of the main building of the Hakkila container village. The workshop participants added to it by drawing and painting their own thoughts on the value of Finnish forests and the possibilities for increasing it.

Inspiration was drawn from, among other things, the forests and forest parks of Japan and the stories and spirit beings associated with them. Experience tourism became one of the most popular themes and was seen as having huge potential as part of Finland's vitality. The business of Kääpä Biotech also aroused interest, and a world of mushrooms, bracket fungi and their mycelia appeared in the shared forest landscape.

The workshop combined community art, creative ideation and discussion about protecting forests and about alternative ways of also increasing their economic value. The result was a mural created together by the participants, in which different views on the future of the forest meet.