A strange hill is rising from the middle of the forest. It looks like it has been divided in two parts. The other half is covered with hay and I see small bushes peeking out of it. The bushes look like someone has cut them into their round shapes. The spring light makes everything look silvery. I see tree deers up on the hill and when they see me, they sprint away and disappear quickly from my field of vision.

The other side of the hill looks like black sand, but when I get closer, the colour starts to look more like purple. The end of the forest is in sight and I stop into a spot where I can see only a few thin willows and the hill that is practically perpendicular. I hear birds singing everywhere, feels like their voices fill the whole forest. The experience is so surreal and romantic that it amuses me. I feel a surprising drop in the temperature. My dog is trying to drink from a puddle and I order him strictly beside me. Drinking the water from the ground is strictly forbidden here.

Aura Kotkavirta´s  work Purple Hills is a series of prints in which she photographed the slow melting of a mountain of discarded urban snow near her home. Photos were taken between early spring and the end of summer. The dark mountain of snow and the surrounding forest reminded her of paintings from romantic era. The forest around the hill has grown from the melting water of car-polluted, waste-blackened snow.