"Luonto vastaa" (2006)

When the global price of uranium increased in the early 2000s, international mining companies rushed to prospect for the commodity in Finland. As a reaction to the activities and motivated by a concern for the possible environmental and health risks of uranium mining, localised anti-uranium mining social movements formed in different parts of the country. Among the activists was Finnish sculptor Pessi Susikustaa Manner (1969–2015) whose aim was to create a work of environmental rock art in each of the municipalities threatened by uranium mining at the time. Manner's Uranium-Free Finland series consists of six artworks sawed and chiselled into the Finnish bedrock between 2006 and 2008, after which the uranium boom started to wane.

As part of my research on the histories and heritages of Finnish uranium mining and connected anti-uranium mining social movements, I visited and documented Manner's carvings in the summer of 2023. The artworks are often located in remote areas, sometimes completely covered in moss or lichen, and therefore hard to find. The most common motif in Manner's artworks is the sun, consisting of a circle with concentric rays, and ranging from 1.5 metres to 5.5 metres in diameter. One of Manner's artworks, Luonto vastaa (Nature Responds, 2006), is a large radiation symbol cut into a near...