Browsing by Subject "hääryijy"

In Finland, the wedding rug adorns one of the most special occasions in human life: the wedding ceremony in a church setting. The recognized tradition of the Finnish rug and the content, which the church setting provides for the purpose of its use, are combined in a wedding rug. In this study, the wedding rug is approached from these two perspectives. While both the Finnish rug and church textiles have previously been studied widely, the wedding rug has been less focused on. This study aims at investigating the location, characteristics and meanings conveyed in wedding rugs in the church buildings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Jakobson’s communication model, which is applied by Riikka Ryökäs (2002) in her dissertation, is used in order to study the communicative nature of wedding rugs. In this study, the focus lies on the context, code and channel aspects of the communication model. The study was carried out in two parts. For the first part, a survey was sent to all the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in order to map the wedding rugs in the country. The survey also sought to find the characteristics of the wedding rugs. For the second part of the study, 12 wedding rugs, located in different places across the country and designed in different time periods, were chosen amongst the data. The communication model was applied in order to analyze the chosen rugs. 142 congregations filled out the survey and 236 wedding rugs were found. There were ten congregations or church settings in which no wedding rugs were found. The findings of the study shed light on the characteristics and the messages of the wedding rugs, as well as confirm the findings of previous studies. The messages, which the wedding rugs convey, can be categorized into four themes which include marriage, Christianity, localness as well as nature. The codes of message are pictorial motifs, colors and the titles of the wedding rugs. The form, material and rug technique are used as a channel for the message conveyed. The information regarding the designer and the context functions as complementary as well as explanatory for the message of the wedding rug.