Sotkamo 1994, Oulu Art Museum (permanently installed in front of the museum) 1996
Andersson took part in the Sculptor’s Union’s exhibition in Eastern Finland. One small town was given to each artist and Andersson got Sotkamo. When Andersson drove to Sotkamo to get a feeling of the place, he could still see some remnants of old milk bays along the roads. It led to the idea to make The Last Finnish Milk Bay for Sotkamo.
The sculpture is a kind of memorial over an extinct culture. The milk from the farms used to be collected in these small huts before they were transported to the dairies. It also honors the milk bay, in a small village in the archipelago outside Turku, where Andersson as a teenager used to gather with other youngsters in the summer evenings.
Inside the sculpture the inhabitants of Sotkamo could carve marks and poems, just as people did in the old days. On the roof is a mermaid longing to get away. As a model Andersson used a girl working in a local pizzeria. The red colour of the mermaid associates with the red waxy cover of the popular Finnish Edam-cheese.
Sotkamo is famous for its successful “pesäpallo”-team, a Finnish version of baseball. The bat and ball of one of their star players are placed on top of the sculpture.
