When I first took an interest in recording the changes taking place in the landscape by returning regularly to the same place and placing my video camera on a tripod in the same spot, attempting to keep the same framing and entering the image in the same position, I worked for a few weeks, sometimes twice a day. To focus on the seasonal changes rather than changes in light and weather, and thus more specifically on time, I decided to record one full year, approximately once a week. And I chose the easiest place possible, the stairs on the slope towards southwest just outside my studio on Harakka Island, off Helsinki. And to have some tension in the image, I chose two positions, one very close to the camera, hiding half of the view with my shoulder, and another further away in the landscape, sitting on a rounded boulder next to the path. This was actually an exaggeration of the two different versions in a work called Windrail II, where I explored the difference between guiding the viewers gaze into the landscape or posing as the central figure embedded in the landscape. In this exaggerated version the human figure is literally blocking the view.
 
This was way back in 2002, twelve years ago. To return to the same place after twelve years would certainly be more dramatic were I not walking on that same path almost on a weekly basis. To try to recreate a version of the first year, as a monthly calendar only, is actually I way of softening the shock of coming to the end of this project which has occupied me fairly regularly for these twelve years. It is also a way of closing the cycle, as it were. So today, in brilliant sunshine, I decided the moment was right for creating the February image. I remember the first image of the Year of the Horse, with the sun sending two dazzling swords to hit the snowy ground. By the time I stood in front of the camera the sky was cloudy and a soft pinkish hue was colouring the sky although there were several hours to go before sunset. Of course my camera was different, too, originally I used simple DV and a 4:3 image, while I now work with HD and a 9:16 image. The dark blue scarf was the same, and so was the rock I was sitting on. The only notable difference in the landscape is the small windmill, fastened with wires to the ground, and I deliberately framed the image to include a part of it, to show some change. I remember being very unhappy for the framing of the original image later in the year, since the rail of the wooden stairs is visible in a monitor, although the camera screen would not show it. So this time I was careful to leave the horizon lower, to be on the safe side.
 
The technique of showing an old photo and then a contemporary picture of the same place is often used. Today there were some images in Helsingin Sanomat, the main newspaper, to commemorate the bombing of Helsinki on February 6 in 1944. Next to the black and white image of a ruined house was a colour image of the contemporary view with a new building from the fifties or sixties in its place. Compared to these dramatic demonstrations of time, my documentation of changes in the landscape is modest indeed. Even the trees on the cliffs seem to have grown very little. They grow slowly in the wind on the dry cliffs, I guess.