Olena Morozova

Lapland Macabre: solstice
2023

Are we what we seem …?
Is the world what it seems …?

The wild landscapes of Lapland seem to have emerged from a Lynchian film – dreamlike, unsteady, full of magical signs and a macabre of untrodden paths, when you don’t know whether you will wake up in the familiar world of everyday life. It’s a good place to celebrate the solstice – merging in pagan ecstasy with the timelessness of ancient spaces. But an attentive eye and a sensitive heart will catch a sharp, inexplicable anxiety behind the silence and lazy midday bliss. The mirage trembles, giving rise to hallucinations, and the shadow of a demon appears on the border of worlds, singing its seductive song, waiting for a victim. The journey to the “wonderland” turned out to be a plunge into a sunlit hell. The travellers have disappeared, the shadow has disappeared, and the song still resounds in the serene indifference of the high Lappish sky…