International Symposium
March 30-31, 2012 Musée d’Orsay and Institut Finlandais, Paris.
In connection with the exhibition on the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela presented at Musée d’Orsay during the spring of 2012, the association The Birch and the Star – Finnish perspectives on the long nineteenth century is organising jointly with Musée d’Orsay and Institut Finlandais an international symposium on “The North, a Literary, Musical and Artistic Myth.” It intends to explore the representation of the North in fin-de-siècle literature, music and arts, with a focus on the mythical images of the North created by Naturalist and Symbolist artists as an arctic space for isolation, melancholy and silence; the kind of symbols and myths used in the narration of the North, and how these images were understood and interpreted in different cultural contexts. By emphasising a comparative study on the images of the North, the symposium encourages discussion on the possible diverse “Norths”.
The Birch and the Star 