Solveig Saar

• Trace
• Tutor: Elin Kard, Johannes Valdma
• Videoinstallation

I was born and raised in Tallinn. A city-girl in all sense of the word. So I can’t say that I’m a nature person in that way. I don’t know that many things about nature and I definitely can’t name every single tree, flower or bush that I meet.

I was about twenty years old when I discovered that I really like spending time in the woods and nature overall. I noticed that I felt instantly better after a walk in fresh air. I connect it with a certain native-estonian instinct. Estonians have always been called forest-people. So I guess I discovered (or rediscovered) that bit deep inside of me, my roots in a way.

So imagine my sadness and worry over the past four years as I’ve been seeing more and more empty fields and sparse places in our forests. Someplace that used to be a thick and beautiful forest has now become a graveyard. With every passing year I can read more and more news about how some people only see our nature as a way of making money and they have stopped caring about what and where they’re cutting down.

And I think about the coming generations. What if in the next ten, twenty or even fifty years is another young girl wanting to discover her roots. And what if, by then, she will have nothing to discover but the traces of what has been.

Pictures of the installation, taken by Martin Buschmann