Finnish artists bring 18th-century sisters’ scandalous journey from Tornio to Paris back to life

In the summer of 1736, the lives of two young women from the small Finnish town of Tornio dramatically changed. Christine, in her twenties, and her soon-to-be 18-year-old sister Elisabeth, daughters of the bourgeois Planström family, were introduced to a team of French academics. The team, sent by the Royal Academy of Sciences in France, came to Tornio to determine the shape of the Earth through astrometric measurements.

The arrival of these sophisticated French academics in Tornio, a town with only 520 inhabitants, stirred strong romantic feelings under the northern skies. Eventually, the young women embarked on an adventure in search of a different life, following the expedition back to Paris, where they caused a scandal among Parisian high society.

This week, after almost 300 years, Christine and Elisabeth Planström have finally returned to their hometown. Performance artists Linda Granfors and Aura Hakuri have stepped into their shoes to bring history to life.

In Tornio, a town that has now grown to around 21,000 inhabitants from 520 in the 1730s, the performance duo is following in the footsteps of the sisters and the expedition. They meet people and share stories about their lives, aiming to awaken history and bring rarely heard stories from the past to the present.

The methods of bringing history to life are diverse. Digital and virtual reality offer unique opportunities, but the most powerful experiences are born from events and encounters. For example, there are medieval markets, drama tours, role-playing games, and camps in Finland where life is lived as closely as possible to the old model.

The story of the Planström sisters, who travelled through Europe in the 18th century, is a testament to the power of such encounters. Their life in Paris did not go as planned; their potential grooms did not seem to warm to the idea of marriage, so the women had to look elsewhere for security. Christine found peace in a monastery in Normandy, while Elisabeth found protection with a noblewoman, with whom she lived for years. The sisters lived in France from 1738 until their deaths in the late 18th century.