Clear-cut Preservation is conceptual, site-specific art work and 2-channel video piece. Clear-cut Preservation is located in Tunnila village, Sulkava, Eastern-Finland. Since 2010, this hectare of clear-cut forest has been declared as a preservation where no further forest management activities (eg. planting, thinning, cut) are allowed for the following 70 years which is approximately the time a tree grows to be big enough to be cut in intensive forestry. In Finland, this is about 60-80 years depending on location but climate breakdown might affect on the growth. The clear-cut of area was done by the previous owners of the forest. There is a camera in the Clear-Cut Preservation to record tree growth and it takes still images in one hour intervals.

The storms and strong winds have affected the game camera position, sometimes it has fallen and sometimes the position changes a bit. The camera is tilted a bit towards left from the 2010 view in 2017. One can still recognize a group of spruces that have grown a lot. Of course, slowly the view becomes like a green wall as the close by trees grow right in front of the lens.

Although, all the forest management is forbidden in the preservation, it was partly thinned by the municipality in 2013. Apparently, it was an accident by their workers and it lead to an interesting discussion with the insurance company of Metsänhoitoyhdistys – association of the forest owners that takes care of the forest management everywhere in Finland. They consider the preservation as a piece of forest or land that is not taken cared of and that they made a favour of thinning parts of it for free. But at the same time, they were destroying an art piece.

Clear-Cut Preservation was first exhibited in Kohta -gallery in Luontokuva 17.12.2018 – 20.1.2019 in Helsinki, Finland. The exhibited art piece consists of two-channel video work documenting the tree growth in the preservation in between years 2010 – 2017, creating a very long time laps. The sound is a prolonged sound of chain saw recorded close to the preservation.

Thank you curator Anders Kreuger, as well as Anna Mustonen, Maija Grönqvist and Timo Aho from Kohta.