Finnish odyssey

My first impression of Finland began in the Helsinki airport. I was en route to my exhibition at Caisa (with my mother and my friend Liz) and just found a mini-bus to help transport my paintings when waiting for another mini-bus were two Finns complete with three vihtaa! What a welcome they were going to give!

This trip happened for a couple reasons; I was bringing my paintings for an exhibition and also to see my ancestral country. My paternal relatives are Pakkala and Hirvelä, and my maternal ones are Kallio and Hänninen. Also, my father had very recently passed away and it suddenly became a need for me to learn more about my "Finnish-ness".

Everything went very well at the exhibition and the opening; expert and congenial help from the gallery (Alina, Liisa), and an opening any artist would love—Adèle Dion, the Canadian Ambassador, hosted a champagne reception, and I also got a review in the Helsingin Sanomat. All my worries had been in my imagination only, as I was truly blessed with a very extraordinary gallery and a very appreciative Finnish public. In retrospect, I believe that Finns are more sophisticated and dedicated to the arts than many Canadians.

After the opening we decided on a day trip to Tallinn on the slow ferry, which disembarked at 8 a.m. with the dancing starting shortly after that! Everything we have been told in the media about the crazy dancing Finns proved to be true. What was particularly touching to me was that about half of the waltzes the band was playing I had heard as a child going to the many family weddings on Long Lake in Northern Ontario. I felt that I had stepped back in time. When we got to Tallinn we enjoyed a fabulous Indian lunch! My friend Liz is originally from Goa and she was laughing that she had to go to Estonia to get a great Indian meal!

Our other day trips included one to Porvoo on a boat that went past many small islands complete with little red saunas. Was this Finland or Sudbury? We also spent a day at Suomenlinna having a picnic. It was an unusually hot day so there were many people on the island and the return trip on the ferry turned into a nightmare of waiting on the dock as there was only one boat in use. More and more people crowded closer and closer to the edge of the dock, yet there was no panic, no yelling. I was almost expecting chaos to break out but reminded myself, "no, you're not in Toronto... this is Helsinki, after all." The ferry finally came and we all boarded in an orderly fashion. There was quite a bit of grumbling all colourfully mixed with the words that "you're not supposed to know".

Altogether my experience had a very "knowing" quality to it—I felt somehow that maybe I was related to everyone as they all looked like someone I had grown up with. I couldn't get over the feeling that it was like home and in some respects it wasn't—that a very integral part of me is definitely Finnish but then again, another part is definitely Canadian. Perhaps this feeling of "home" is not so narrowly measured by geography alone.

By Diana Pakkala

Diana Pakkala is a second generation Finnish-Canadian artist based in Toronto. From August 4-27, 2004 her exhibition "Boxers" was on at the Caisa Cultural Centre in Helsinki. "Boxers" portrayed African American boxers on canvas. At the opening of her exhibition she didn't want to reveal too much about the paintings and asked us to interpret them for ourselves. One of the best things about the paintings is the reaction they garner from people, she said, in that people are stunned to learn that these works are done by a woman.

She was thrilled to be in Finland for the very first time and was deeply grateful for the support of the Caisa Centre staff and for the involvement of the Canadian Embassy.