When The Lockdown Is Over,

many will flock to the countryside,

and if you are in Finland and go to Highway 5, outside of Suomussalmi, in Finland’s countryside the above is what you will see, The Silent People, photograph Timo Newton-Syms, seen from afar, The Silent People installation looks like a perfectly still army of people all facing the same way, it is only when you take a closer look that you realize it’s made up of wooden frames covered in human clothes and heads made of peat, which does a surprisingly good job of emulating human hair,

 in case you are wondering, yes their clothes change every so often, so what is it?

inaugurated way back in 1988, The Silent People, or “Hiljainen kansa” in Finnish, was originally located in a field in Lassila, a neighborhood of Helsinki. It was then moved in the Market Place of Helsinki’s Senate Square, then on the banks of the river Jalonuoma, Ämmänsaari, and finally settled in this empty field outside Suomussalmi in 1994, Suomussalmi Youth Workshop maintains the The Silent People, changing the clothes of the wooden figures twice a year, using clothes collected through donation,

what Reijo Kela wanted his Silent People to symbolize, no one knows, because he’s not willing to reveal the answer. People have been speculating about the meaning of the installation for decades, but so far we only have theories. The most popular version is that the figures represent those lost during a fierce battle that took place nearby during the Winter War of 1939-1940 between Finland and Soviet Russia, you can see more on Instagram, what a strange art installation.