anni rapinoja’s wardrobe of nature

I miss having a garden, so environmental artist Anni Rapinoja’s Wardrobe of Nature made me smile, thinking about wrapping myself in the natural world I love so dearly.

Coat of Baby Earth

Rapinoja creates a structure for shoes, handbags and goblets and then adorns them with plant material. Some of the forms are molded of tissue paper hardened with rye porridge, others have cotton or wool as supporting structures.

Time of Growth, tea-leaved willow

Coat of Mother, common reed

Warm Shoes Mother, tea-leaved willow

Rapinoja, who lives on an island off the coast of Finland, trained as a botanist and has been an environmental activist for more than twenty years. Her work is meant to deliver the message that we are part of nature.

Shoes Under Change, cowberry leaves

People have drifted far away from their ‘home’, from nature. Seeing forms of one’s own world combined with nature awakens a subconscious need to get close to it, to get inside. The art brings out a craving to be close to nature, a desire to go back ‘home’. Anni Rapinoja via