Soul birds come from finnish paganism. As in animistic traditions, each individual has a double in the animal world. Here, it assumes the form of a bird.
“In Karelia it was believed that a bird brings the soul to a newborn baby, and that the same bird takes the soul with it when person dies. This soul-carrying bird was called sielulintu, ‘soul-bird’. In some traditions people carried artifacts depicting their sielulintu. Sielulintu was believed to guard their souls while they slept. After the person died, the artifact-bird was inserted to sit on the cross at the person’s grave. Such crosses with soul birds still exist in graveyards in Karelia. This is one example how Christian and Pagan beliefs still existed side by side hundreds of years after the Christianization of the Finnish and Karelian people [1].”
Sanna Annukka is a finnish artist currently living and working in London. She is particularly inspired by finnish folklore and her favourite technique is screen printing which she uses on different materials [2]. Her soul birds are made of brown oak wood with screen-printed vegetal patterns on one side [3].
The bird pattern can also be seen in the limited edition screen print entitled Magic berry bush.
Credits: embedded images of Soul birds & Magic berry bush © Sanna Annukka from http://www.sanna-annukka.com and http://designvagabond.blogspot.com
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