Walking from Yakutsk to Helsinki in 5.3 Million Steps
2009
Object, 35 x 28 x 24 cm.
Materials: reindeer hide boots
Collection: Courtesy of the artist.
For this work Laakkonen spent 176 days walking in and around the city of Yakutsk in eastern Siberia. This is also the number of verses in Genesis from the Creation to the Great Flood. The number of steps given in the title would have taken him all the way back to his native Helsinki, but it also referred to the size of Finland’s population. Throughout the entire performance, in temperatures varying from –50° to +40°, Laakkonen wore the same pair of reindeer hide boots, which he had made for himself and which wore out in the process. (AK)
