Petri Luukkainen

Petri is a film maker who recently released his first full feature documentary. The film is about his very personal and brave experimental journey. Petri decided he would take every single possession out of his apartment, put it in storage, and then bring one item back per day for a period of a year. In this way, he could discover the balance of moderation and comfort.

"At the beginning I thought: ‘taking everything away is totally crazy and it won't work. So, I'll the leave 20 items in the apartment in the start’. But then I started thinking: 'what are the most important 20 items?' I couldn't decide. The experiment was therefore about the process of defining what I needed in my life to be happy”

Petri’s project was intended to be about stuff, his stuff and getting rid of the clutter of stuff in his house. But it turned out to be about transformation, self-realisation and redefining value in life. It brought him closer to the people in his life and he became more active outside of his home. His journey also made him much more ecologically aware and in a way turned him onto an environmental activist of a sort.

“Before, I used to associate owning things on my own with being self-sufficient and free. I don't know if it is cultural or comes from evolution, but when mixed with marketing and advertising atmosphere, I was tricked into believing that I needed to own everything independently. Now, I find the idea that sharing things with a group of people is a much more liberating way to live. I realise, I don't want the burden of owning too many things in my life. It takes a lot of energy, money and time to maintain our things”

Petri documented this one year journey and his film has already been shown in theaters in Finland, and will be coming to the rest of Europe. He hopes of course to have an impact with his film, and it has definitely changed the way he lives and looks at life

“It feels like another person, the one I was before, thinking my life was made up of my things. Now I don't want to talk about words like ‘stuff’ and ‘happiness’ in the same sentence”

Trailer of Petri’s film with English subtitles
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