Aki-Pekka Sinikoski: Finnish Teens

The photographer Aki-Pekka Sinikoski’s (b.1978) Finnish Teens exhibition, as the title says, fills the museum’s Project space from floor to ceiling with Finnish teens. Looking out from the walls of the space are the offspring of the torrent of images coming from the Internet. They appear in front of the camera as their own selves, unposed, but looking us straight in the eye. The pictures are unvarnished, but affectionate.

Sinikoski has sought out teenagers on the threshold of independence.

“Most of the young people in the photographs are still living with their parents, while their own identity is rapidly taking shape at the same time, so that serious conflicts can arise with the value systems of their childhood homes. The pictures come at the point of breakthrough, when the young person’s own wings will not yet bear them aloft, even though the rage to get out into the world is already burning strong.” 

The young subjects have been photographed at home or elsewhere in their everyday environments, but the bright light that Sinikoski uses gives the pictures an advertising-like luminosity. “The pictures, as it were, show a world of fairy-tale stickers that everyday life has nevertheless ripped to shreds.”

The photographer himself thinks of his pictures as documentaries or short stories with overlapping plots. “This short-story collection tells of a life that they no longer feel is their own. It is a tale of waiting; waiting to find yourself again.”

Sinikoski is known as a multi-faceted portrait photographer. He has also worked as an arranger and curator of the Helsinki Biennale exhibitions since 2006.

The exhibition’s own website: www.sinikoski.com

A portfolio of the images in the exhibition is published in PhotoRAW magazine 15/2011.

Meet the Artist on Sunday 16.10. at 2pm. Museum entrance fee.

Read Aki-Pekka Sinikoski's text about the exhibition and his work here.