Hannu Parviainen

Nilsiä (1952)

Hannu Parviainen, who ran a family farm before retiring, lives in the small village of Murtolahti in Nilsiä. Parviainen is an ITE artist who preserves agricultural history in his works. He made his first work in 2014, a cow called Etevä (‘Clever’), welded from couplers and two water troughs. Parviainen, who calls himself a blacksmith of cold iron, welded a statue of Huvetar the mare from old oil canisters. Huvetar lived on the farm until 1972, and Hannu says that she was a really good workhorse.  

Having created Huvetar, it occurred to Parviainen to build a large stone circle on the land, which he calls the Farmer’s Church. Old blacksmith’s tools, various agricultural machines, milk churns and cart wheels are placed in the church as relics.  

Parviainen also built a ‘memory lane’ on the slope leading to the shores of Hanhisalmi, which features different agricultural machinery from different eras. While he was building the memory lane, Parviainen came across a couple of clod crushers. Before he knew it, he was turning the discs into a tractor. It weighs several hundred kilogrammes and was modelled after the first tractor on Hanhiranta farm, a David Brown Cropmaster, which Parviainen called Taavetti & Pojat (‘David and the Boys’).  

Text and photos: Jari Ruotsalainen Translation: Kirsti Nurmela-Knox

ITE Art surveys / Northern Savonia 2020–2022