Big Stone

Lanu Park in Lahti was built between 1989 and 1992. The city of Lahti commissioned a total of 12 sculptures from Olavi Lanu to be placed in the deciduous Kariniemenmäki forest. The starting point of the sculptures was the body of work Lanu created for the Venice Biennale in 1978, entitled Life in the Finnish Forest, in which he explored the relationship between humanity and nature in various ways. Cast in concrete at the Renkomäki gravel pit, the sculptures in the park imitate natural materials. Blending in with their surroundings, the sculptures were all sited by the artist himself.

Olavi Lanu (1925–2015) was a visual artist, teacher and prominent figure in the Lahti art scene.

The heaviest work in Lanu Park is Big Stone, which weighs 37 tonnes. It depicts a group of naked people huddled together so closely that they become a single large boulder. By abandoning discrete, individual figures and merging with natural forms, the work succeeds in embodying themes that simultaneously reference eternity and transience. The varied body shapes expressed on its surface give this emotionally charged work a visually fascinating, irregular and exciting texture, which was created by copying the surfaces of natural rocks using cheese wax. The models for the work were students of fashion design at the Lahti Institute of Design.

Artwork on the map

In Lanu Sculpture Park. – Kariniemenpuistotie 49, Lahti.
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