This article is published in issue 24/25 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until June 21, 2022
When you fall in love it seems that everything is about him or her. This year, at the Venice Biennale of Art, I fell in love with Finland watching a video installation on the theme of control by an artist named Pilvi Takalaa job based on his undercover experience as a security guard in a shopping mall.
I still don’t understand why this work has touched me so much, but art does this: it disturbs you deeply and you understand the reason only with time. From that day – it was April 23 – everything speaks to me of my new love, of which I knew almost nothing until the 22nd. Now, on the other hand, I know that in Finland, to solve addiction, mental health and petty crime problems, everyone is given a home; that public employees have an obligation to help you pay as little tax as possible based on your income bracket and there is no need for an accountant. I also know that the country has one of the strongest armies on the continent and above all that Finns have sisu: a concept of endurance, courage, determination and rationality that involves mind and body.
Before I fell in love, I only knew – in addition to the frivolities about Santa Claus, saunas, reindeer and the Northern Lights – that in Finland there are just over five million people; that Prime Minister Sanna Marin was raised by two mothers and became the youngest head of state in the world when she was 34; that since 2018, continuously, Finland is the happiest country on the face of the earth. Now that I love it, I know why: it’s a place where no one is left behind. Finland borders Russia for over a thousand kilometers and since 24 February the Finns have been looking in amazement at the invasion of Ukraine: it had happened to them too, in 1939, and now they fear it could happen again, so they asked to join NATO . They were against it, they changed their minds. They are pragmatic. I love them for that too.
To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.
Source: Vanity Fair
