The Karelian Pie works are part of my ongoing artistic research into the cultural narratives that shape how the female body is understood in relation to nature. Rooted in Finnish folklore, mythology, and feminist inquiry, the works explore how bodily knowledge, ecological relationships, and inherited belief systems continue to influence contemporary ways of seeing the body.
In Finnish folk belief, the vulva was historically understood as a powerful and ambivalent force, liminal space. It symbolized life, protection, and fertility, but also danger, transformation, and connection to the unknown. Rather than being treated as a purely sexual object, it functioned as a cosmological threshold, a gateway between worlds, often associated with the wild forces of forest nature.
This worldview appears in several traditional ritual practices. Folk magic such as harakointi involved symbolically transferring protective power by passing people or animals beneath a woman’s spread legs. The gesture was believed to protect livestock, children, or soldiers by channeling the life-force of the female body. Another practice, pyllyttäminen, involved exposing the vulva toward the forest or toward a threatening force in order to repel danger, influence natural forces, or ward off predators. In these traditions, the female body was not passive but an active agent capable of affecting the surrounding world.
The visual language of these beliefs survives in Finnish cultural symbols. One of the most subtle and widely recognized is the Karelian pie (karjalanpiirakka), a traditional pastry made by women for generations. Its oval form, crimped edges, and soft center resemble vulval imagery. Crisp on the outside and soft within, the pie embodies nourishment, care, and continuity. It connects domestic labor, female knowledge, and generational memory.
Unlike more aggressive vulva symbols found in Finnish visual culture, the Karelian pie carries a gentler symbolic tone. It represents the nurturing and sustaining dimension of feminine power: softness, resilience, humor, and life-giving strength. Historically the recipe was passed down from mother to daughter, often prepared collectively by women. The act of baking itself became a social ritual through which knowledge, stories, and embodied cultural memory were transmitted.
In my work, the Karelian pie becomes a visual and conceptual structure rather than a literal object. Installations consist of hundreds of small pie-like forms, each slightly different from the next. Together they create shifting environments resembling portals, swarms, or living surfaces. Some installations are illuminated with ultraviolet light so that the works begin to glow, creating an immersive atmosphere between material reality and mythic imagination.
These pieces are constructed from mixed and often recycled materials: fabrics, threads, buttons, fur, glitter, and found objects. The structure typically echoes the layered symbolism of the vulva in folklore. An outer protective layer, textured edges resembling folds or hair, and a shimmering interior that suggests moisture, depth, and vitality. In Finnish folk metaphors, the vulva was sometimes described as resembling a wetland or marsh, fertile, mysterious, and full of life.
Importantly, the Karelian Pie works do not aim to sexualize the female body. Instead, they invite reflection on how cultural traditions once understood women’s bodies as powerful ecological and cosmological entities. The works explore the possibility of reconnecting bodily knowledge with landscape, memory, and myth.
Through humor, repetition, and material experimentation, the installations create a space where folklore and feminist thought intersect. The works ask viewers to consider how cultural myths shape our understanding of the body today and how the female body might once again be imagined not as an object of control, but as a living connection to nature, history, and collective imagination.
– Minttu Saarinen, 2026
