It's all very well being At One with Nature, but when they start feasting on your pelargoniums, they've crossed a line says Jason Goodwin. The Estonians are a witty lot and up to date. It took them moments to throw off the hideous weight of Soviet occupation, which ended in 1991, and then to rediscover their inner Scandinavian.
They have a natural flair for modern design, fashion and architecture. The funky museum they built to hold their post-war art in Tallinn, their tiny capital, is called KUMU, which makes me smile because it’s like a Finno-Ugric version of MOMA, in New York. At KUMU, three summers ago, I encountered an installation called Snail Mail .
A dozen brown snails crept around a big tray, eating a feast of lettuce leaves, with small antennae fastened to their shells. You were invited to choose a snail by the number painted on its shell, leave an email address and wait for the snail to reach the perimeter of the tray. At the perimeter, the snail’s antenna would activate a signal and send an automated, or perhaps even personalised, message to your email.
Whether or not that constitutes art in your book, it was nice to see the snails enjoying their salad. I duly left my details, thinking about how my encounters with snails at this time of year are generally more robust. On the whole, I am merciful.
I can afford to be a hurler, picking them off the phlox and chucking them over my garden walls, which give onto pasture instead of other people’s gardens. We know, .
