Axel Straschnoy (born 1978) is a visual artist and filmmaker from Buenos Aires, based in Helsinki. His work deals with the social practices surrounding objects of knowledge.
The Paasselkä lake lies on the border between Savo and Carelia, in Eastern Finland. Created by a meteorite impact sometime in the last 1,900 million years, the lake renders compasses useless.
Reports of strange lights floating over the lake, moving autonomously and at great speed from place to place, have been documented since the 1700s. The so-called Paasselän pirut or the Devils of Paasselkä.
The Devils of Paasselkä balances between the verifiable observations and the mysteries of the spirit world. Some interviewees accurately locate the light phenomenon "seven kilometres from the pier". The exact magnitudes do not bring the secret any closer, but it remains in the twilight world of the old devil legends. But are we no longer sensitive enough to living with these legends? The last local to speak out wonders why the mysterious has disappeared from the village and the lake: "Has the village's energy changed?"
Tytti Ranttanen, In Mysterius Premises