Garden of Stones
and
a Thousand Flowers
Why we are here and where we came from ?
“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe.
Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Where are we going ?
Excursion into Philosophy
Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult
'What is that?
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions
"... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
What is the most important thing in life?
Something that everybody needs? Philosophers think so. They believe that man cannot live by bread alone. Of course everyone needs food. And everyone needs love and care. But there is something else—apart from that— which everyone needs, and that is to figure out who we are and why we are here. The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions:
How was the world created?
Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? "
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
Structure of matter
Structure of matter has been a subject of interest since antiquity (here about 400s BCE) when Democritus named the fundamental elements of matter “atomos” (“invisible”).
While his interpretation of atomic properties and structure is more on philosophical side one can see some deep ideas that became scientifically verifiable and formalised only in the last 100 years.
Few decades consisted of efforts of Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, de Broglie, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and others in the developing quantum theory, used to construct an accurate description of atoms.
Guest Star, 2013
Helena Lehtinen
Brooch, 2023,
textile, glass beads
Helena Lehtinen
Brooch, 2020
textile, glass beads
Helena Lehtinen
"A Greek philosopher who lived more than two thousand years ago believed that philosophy had its origin in man’s sense of wonder. Man thought it was so astonishing to be alive that philosophical questions arose of their own accord. It is like watching a magic trick. We cannot understand how it is done.
A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician suddenly pulls a rabbit out of a hat which has just been shown to them empty.
In the case of the rabbit, we know the magician has tricked us. What we would like to know is just how he did it. But when it comes to the world it’s somewhat different".
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
dialog I 2023
marble
Nelli Tanner
to think, 2023
slate, marble
Nelli Tanner
"We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because here we are in it, we are part of it. Actually, we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference between us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick. Unlike us. We feel we are part of something mysterious and we would like to know how it all works".
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
"P.S. As far as the white rabbit is concerned, it might be better to compare it with the whole universe. We who live here are microscopic insects existing deep down in the rabbit’s fur.
But philosophers are always trying to climb up the fine hairs of the fur in order to stare right into the magician’s eyes"
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHENS
Democracy
We have already completed the first part of the course. I refer to the natural philosophers and their decisive break with the mythological world picture. Now we are going to meet the three great classical philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Each in his own way, these philosophers influenced the whole of European civilization.
Curtain up! The history of ideas is like a drama in many acts.
After about 450 B.C., Athens was the cultural center of the Greek world. From this time on, philosophy took a new direction. The natural philosophers had been mainly concerned with the nature of the physical world. This gives them a central position in the history of science. In Athens, interest was now focused on the individual and the individual’s place in society..
Gradually a democracy evolved, with popular assemblies and courts of law. In order for democracy to work, people had to be educated enough to take part in the democratic process.
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
Plato
... a longing to return to the realm of the soul...
Does man have an immortal soul?
If man had an immortal soul, one would have to believe that a person consisted of two separate parts: a body that gets worn out after many years—and a soul that operates more or less independently of what happens to the body.
Her grandmother had said once that she felt it was only her body that was old. Inside she had always been the same young girl
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
Socrates himself said,
“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”
Socrates, who dared tell people how little we humans know. The similarity between children and philosophers is something we have already talked about
As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates “called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil.”
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
What were the philosophers thinking about in the Greek Gardens?
Influenced by Democritus, Aristippus and possibly the Cynics, Epicurus turned against the Platonism of his day and established his own school, known as
"the Garden", in Athens.
Epicurus and his followers were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of philosophical subjects.
""The story goes that the Epicureans lived in a garden. They were therefore known as the “garden philosophers.” Above the entrance to this garden there is said to have hung a notice saying, “Stranger, here you will live well. Here pleasure is the highest good.”
Epicurus emphasized that the pleasurable results of an action must always be weighed against its possible side effects.. Moreover, the enjoyment of life required the old Greek ideals of self-control, temperance, and serenity.
After Epicurus, many Epicureans developed an overemphasis on selfindulgence. Their motto was “Live for the moment!” The word “epicurean” is used in a negative sense nowadays to describe someone who lives only for pleasure."
........
You may perhaps think this last part is a bit too obscure. Let me put it like this: Socrates thought that no one could possibly be happy if they acted against their better judgment. And he who knows how to achieve happiness will do so. Therefore, he who knows what is right will do right. Because why would anybody choose to be unhappy?
What do you think.. Can you live a happy life if you continually do things you know deep down are wrong?
There are lots of people who lie and cheat .... Are they aware that these things are not right—or fair, if you prefer? Do you think these people are happy?
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
Hand casted ceramic key
Veera Kulju
“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask:
What is the nature of the universe?
What is our place in it and where did it and we come from?
Why is it the way it is?”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
"which came first: the chicken or the egg?"
The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicken-and-egg" is a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect, to express a scenario of infinite regress, or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first. Plutarch posed the question as a philosophical matter in his essay "The Symposiacs", written in the 1st century CE.
Suggestions for a spoon
Elina Honkanen
“Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why.
On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories.
In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as:
Did the universe have a beginning?
However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, "The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language." What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Sophie's World is a 1991 novel by Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder. It follows Sophie, a teenager, who is introduced to the history of philosophy as she is asked
"Who are you?"
"Where does this world come from?"
The nonfictional content of the book aligns with Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy
Veera Kulju
ANALOGUE Book
Limited edition A2 hand stitched publication, printed with several different printing techniques (letterpress, offset, riso) on left over papers from printing houses.
"THE GARDEN OF EDEN …
at some point something must have come from nothing …"
Сhapter 1
Sophie’s World, Jostien Gaarder
EDEN ring, 2021
Vesa Nilsson
Necklace, 2024,
vintage textiles, glass beads
Helena Lehtinen
Brooch, 2020,
textile, glass beads, silver
Helena Lehtinen
Brooch, 2023,
textile, glass beads
Helena Lehtinen
Bridges between Cultures
The ancient Indian Veda scriptures and Greek philosophy, and for that matter Snorri Sturluson’s mythology are all written in related languages. But it is not only the languages that are related. Related languages often lead to related ideas. Both of the two great Oriental religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, are Indo-European in origin. So is Greek philosophy, and we can see a number of clear parallels between Hinduism and Buddhism on the one hand and Greek philosophy on the other.
All three Western religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—share a Semitic background. The Semites also had in common a linear view of history. In other words, history was seen as an ongoing line. In the beginning God created the world and that was the beginning of history. But one day history will end .
I also mentioned that the Indo-Europeans always made pictorial representations or sculptures of their gods. It was just as characteristic for the Semites that they never did.
We said that the most important of the senses for Indo-Europeans was sight. How important hearing was to the Semitic cultures is just as interesting.
Lastly, the Indo-Europeans had a cyclic view of history..
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
".. she opened the envelope. It contained only a slip of paper no bigger than the envelope. It read:
Who are you?
Nothing else, only the three words, written by hand, and followed by a large question mark"
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
A Portrait Installation
Anna Rikkinen
My Queen Collection
Kristina: green tourmaline and small, green brilliants
Victoria: brown diamond and baguette-cut small diamonds
Katarina: peach coloured sapphire and small brilliants
Elisabeth: diamond and small brilliants
gold
Petri Eklöf
Fancy Felicia ring, 2023
Diamonds, gold
Annika Eklöf
Anna Rikkinen
Tea Please
Stellar rings, 2019
Vesa Nilsson
“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At teh end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said:
"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever, " said the old lady. "But it turtles all the way down!”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Summer ́-relief, 2025,
160 x 160 cm, plywood
Inni Pärnänen
The flower sculpture of her work is built on a principle that allows it to grow, like a fragment from what may have been a much larger hanging.
It can be related to a type known as millefleurs, meaning a thousand flowers. This was a style in the late 15th, and millefleurs were woven in many different centers and workshops in Northern France and Flanders.
Series: After us
includes pieces After us I, After us III
When the end of the world comes, what will be left, what survives?
"Even from the darkest of places will something beautiful sprout and start to grow?
What comes after us?
Somewhre there is hope to be found, the flowers are blooming and waiting for the light to come."
Elina Honkanen
What is Light ?
Visible light propagates by massless elementary particles called photons that represents the quanta of electromagnetic field, and can be analyzed as both waves and particles.
Eden rings, 2021
Vesa Nilsson
Poppies (Flowers for Pina) 2022
Irene Sema
...everywhere in nature some of the divine light is shining. We can see it in all living creatures; even a rose or a bluebell has its divine glow. Furthest away from the living God are earth and water and stone.
I am saying that there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy.
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
Neoplatonism
“spark from the fire”
Imagine a great burning bonfire in the night from which sparks fly in all directions. A wide radius of light from the bonfire turns night into day in the immediate area; but the glow from the fire is visible even from a distance of several miles....
Imagine now that reality is a bonfire like this. That which is burning is God.....Closest to God are the eternal ideas which are the primal forms of all creatures. The human soul, above all, is a “spark from the fire.”
According to Plotinus, the soul is illuminated by the light from the One, while matter is the darkness that has no real existence. But the forms in nature have a faint glow of the One.
Everything flows, said Heraclitus
Mirror video
Veera Kulju
Anna Rikkinen
Hot-Mess
Series After us I, 2024
brooch, 12x4cm
Elina Honkanen
Mirrors, 2018-2023
Veera Kulju
“The mirrors also suggest a portal into another realm – an escape from the harshness of this reality to a place where one can lay one’s head on the gentle moss and find some respite from this life.
For Kulju this work serves to process her own feelings of fragility. She offers us a glimpse into the places where she finds solace and light. She speaks of finding refuge in the details – the mind-boggling intricacy of the work is what grounds her. In the daunting overwhelm of this life Kulju clings to the details in order to stay present.”
Juliet Burrows, Hostler Burrows Gallery
Journey to the East
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
101 Zen Stories is a 1919 compilation of Zen koans including 19th and early 20th century anecdotes compiled by Nyogen Senzaki, written in the 13th century by Japanese Zen master Mujū
The Gates of Paradise
A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, and asked:
"Is there really a
paradise and a hell?"
"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.
"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.
"You, a soldier!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as
his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar."
Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin
continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head." As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of
hell!" At these words the samurai, perceiving the master's discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.
"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin.
Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories
About Ornament V, 2020
brooch
marble, brass, 10 x 10 x 0,5 cm
Tarja Tuupanen
(no title), brooch, 2017
used marble tableware, brass
9 x 8 x 2 cm
Tarja Tuupanen
(no title), brooch, 2017
used marble tableware, brass
9 x 8 x 2 cm
Tarja Tuupanen
Gudo and the Emperor
The emperor Goyozei was studying Zen under Gudo. He inquired:
"In Zen this very mind is Buddha. Is this correct?"
Gudo answered: "If I say yes, you will think that you understand without understanding. If I say no, I would be contradicting a fact which you may understand quite well."
On another day the emperor asked Gudo:
"Where does the enlightened
man go when he dies?"
Gudo answered: "I know not."
"Why don't you know?" asked the emperor.
"Because I have not died yet," replied Gudo.
The emperor hesitated to inquire further about these things his mind could not grasp. So Gudo beat the floor with his hand as if to awaken him, and the emperor was enlightened!
The emperor respected Zen and old Gudo more than ever after his enlightenment, and he even permitted Gudo to wear his hat in the palace in winter. When Gudo was over eighty he used to fall asleep in the midst of his lecture, and the emperor would quietly retire to another room so his beloved teacher might enjoy the rest his aging body required.
Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories
study of, 2023
paper, milk
Nelli Tanner
dialogue II, 2024
video + graniitti
Nelli Tanner
Ryōan-ji Zen garden, the karesansui (dry landscape) rock garden, thought to have been built in the late 15th century.
Lichene ring, 2024
Petri Eklöf
Lichene Ring
Miniature Garden
Petri Eklöf was inspired by weathered stone which at first glance seems lifeless and barren. However, its surface provides a platform for growth of the microscopic beauty you find, if you take time to stop and look for it.
Bedrock provides a habitat for thousands of lichens, a blooming miniature garden. The 18K yellow gold surface is decorated with diamonds in different shades of green embedded in white gold.
Anemone Vertebralis, series After us, 2025
brooch
Elina Honkanen
Summer rain, scent of grass, 2024
Janna Syvänoja
How Grass and Trees Become Enlightened ?
During the Kamakura period, Shinkan studied Tendai six years and then
studied Zen seven years; then he went to China and contemplated Zen for
thirteen years more.
When he returned to Japan many desired to interview him and asked obscure questions. But when Shinkan received visitors, which was infrequently, he seldom answered their questions.
One day a fifty-year-old student of enlightenment said to Shinkan: "I have
studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing
in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass and trees will
become enlightened. To me this seems very strange." "Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees become enlightened?" asked Shinkan. "The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you even consider that?"
"I never thought of it that way," marveled the old man.
"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan.
Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories
Necklace-Brooch, 2012
29 x 13 x 5 cm
paper, steelwire
Janna Syvänoja
“I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Colorito Ring, 2023
Petri Eklöf
Irene Sema
Reserve Honey
titanium and glass pin
The same door / brooch from series Times passing
Elina Honkanen
What can we know?
What should we do?
What can we hope for?
Immanuel Kant