André Prah: Ice Horses on Lake Ladoga

Italian war correspondent and surrealist Curzio Malaparte describes the war between Finland and the Soviet Union in his work Kaputt. In December 1941, he went to the front and witnessed something extraordinary: Finnish troops had surrounded a Soviet artillery regiment with horses on the shore of Lake Ladoga in Karelia, set the forest on fire, and driven nearly a thousand horses into the lake. The backs of the horses closest to shore were burning; they reared up on their hind legs, trampled each other, and tried to swim further out into the lake by biting and kicking.

In the chaos, the cold paralyzed the horses. A north wind swept across Lake Ladoga from the Barents Sea over the Murmansk region, and the ground suddenly became lifeless. Nearly a thousand frozen horses formed an ice monument to the horrors of war.

André Prah has interpreted Malaparte's story and recreated the ice horses - using pieces of wood, roots, trunks, and branches.

Helsinki Cathedral Crypt, 2-21 June 2026. Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00. Free admission.