Art on my Way to School!


Story and photos: Amir Abdi
If you are in part of those students that use bus for coming to school and back from main bus station, likely you walk over “Kivikirjasto”, the Stone Library, twice a day.


Usually on the speed of walking, people take a glance and read one of these poems. Or is a good chance to pause for seconds and let the poem take you beyond city life and cheer you up!

In addition, it can be more interesting if you are learning Finnish language like me then there’s a new word to learn every day just by walking over them.

Artist is Radoslaw Gryta sculptor, was born in Poland in 1955, studied sculpture Repin Institute in Leningrad, and Krakow and the Finnish Academies of Fine Arts. He moved to Finland in 1979 and was granted Finnish citizenship in 1986. He lives and works in Riihimäki.

I tried to translate of my favorite ones into English:

Wideshouldered city
breaths the morning into its lungs
and starts a new era
(Viljo Kajava)

Live you must
and to realize that you live
(F.E. Sillanpää)

Rain opens the ears to the sleeper
Rain opens the shadows to the walker
Rain opens the hearing, the walking inwards
(Eeva-Liisa Manner)

All the poems of the Stone Library (In Finnish)