Kati Sinenmaa

Helsinki (1950)

Kati Sinenmaa is an activist and free thinker from Helsinki. She is known as the builder of the stone castle in Pasila but also for her online activity – Sinenmaa reflects on the phenomena of our time extensively and usually civilly, but always critically, on her blog site.

The stone castle built by Sinenmaa’s own hands is located in the middle of Pasila, Helsinki, on a forgotten strip, where highway bridges meet railways branching off in many directions from the capital. The place is a hub of hectic traffic flows, but it is still hidden in a bush and behind trees.

Sinenmaa was allowed to live and build her dream on the plot of land she occupied in peace for 13 years, but the media’s interest ultimately affected her fate. Countless newspaper stories and television inserts have been made about her, even a whole documentary film, but the extensive article of Helsingin Sanomat’s Kuukausiliite on June 4, 2016 finally broke the camel’s back.

The Finnish Transport Agency evicted Sinenmaa from its plot and erected a high steel fence around it. The construction of Sinenmaa and the writings dangerously questioned the self-evident things built into the foundations of society. The country can no longer be conquered, the castle can no longer be built. Everything, even the rocky wasteland, is someone’s property in this world.

Text and images: Veli Granö