Idyll of the week from week 32: The carefree days of childhood?

09Aug

Exhibition visitors have been able to arrange various mood pieces during the Turku Biennial on an idyll scale of cool, warm and hot. This week cards with child topics are placed on the far edges of the scale. On one card the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren's Six Children of Bullerby dance merrily around the Christmas Tree and on another card sweet curly-headed children gather flowers on a ledge under the protection of a guardian angel. At the top of the angel card reads ”For the enjoyment and knowledge of children”.

Both images evoke nostalgic feelings. Can idyll be true? Are dreams and unattainability inevitably included in the concept? A sense of yearning to the past can easily distance one from reality. Why is childhood so often compared to the concept of idyll? Have we forgot how strongly we experienced everything as a child?

Out of the two chosen options Astrid Lindgren's depiction of childhood is considered more idyllic this week. Lindgren's portayl of life in the three farm houses of Bullerby probably conveys somehow the collective nordic experience of childhood.