Maanantai Collective: Nine Nameless Mountains

The Project space, from 24 May to 1 September 2013

Press Conference on Thursday 23 May at 11am. Exhibition opening on Thursday 23 May from 5pm to 7pm. Maanantai Kollektiivi will be present for both the conference and the opening. Welcome!

PRESS PHOTOS

Nine Nameless Mountains, a work about a trip to the north, is a playful reinterpretation of the road trip genre of photography. It is a poetic and absurd study that uses geographical observations to explore distance and scale, whilst being a celebration of friendship, photography and chance.

Maanantai Kollektiivi: Nine Nameless Mountains, Cloudberry

In August 2012, we travelled together to the Norwegian Lofoten Islands, where the Nine Nameless Mountains became our story: we wanted to explore and undermine the mythical position of the author in art and to find new approaches to our photographic expression.

Our trip to the Lofoten Islands meant a successful rejection of the idea of artistic creation being an individual effort. Instead, we relied on cooperation and openly sharing ideas. The idea was: if you are bold or stupid enough to lose yourself, you may end up finding something that you did not even think to look for.

Maanantai Collective:

Anne Golaz
Jonna Kina
Tanja Koljonen
Jaana Maijala
Juuso Noronkoski
Mikko Rikala
Maija Savolainen
Anne Yli-Ikkelä

The photography book, Nine Nameless Mountains, will be published on 3 June 2013 by Kehrer Verlag. Nine Nameless Mountains will also be exhibited at the Alt+1000 photography festival in Rossinière, Switzerland, in July 2013.

MORE INFORMATION:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nine-Nameless-Mountains/194126907401595

Meet the artists: The Night of The Arts, Thursday 22.8. at 18.00–19.00. Free admission.

Julius Koivistoinen: Everyday Paradise

24.5.–1.9.2013, Process Space

Press briefing on Thursday 23.5. at 11:00. Opening 23.5. at 17-19. Artist present. Welcome!

PRESS PHOTOS

What are the things that make everyday life good? A series of documentary photographs by Julius Koivistoinen (born 1990) of daily life of various Helsinki residents links the people and their surroundings in a cinematic manner.

Julius Koivistoinen: Everyday Paradise, Kamppi, Helsinki, 2011

“My aim is to create scenes that absorb the viewer for longer than a mere glimpse, and to achieve that I'm combining elements from art and documentary genres and using advanced lighting techniques. At first my point of view was purely visual. After some time, however, I noticed that the people I stopped on the streets and photographed had certain common characteristics. They all radiated some kind of positive energy; self-confidence, great warmth of heart, or simply, they were ready to smile to a complete stranger the moment we met.”

Read more about the exhibition: www.everydayparadise.net

Here you can download wallpapers for your own use!

 In co-operation with Airam and Keraplast.

Meet the artist: The Night of The Arts, Thursday 22.8. at 18.00–19.00. Free entrance.

Julius Koivistoinen: Everyday Paradise, Kontula, Helsinki. 2011

Summer School

8.5.-28.7.2013

PRESS PHOTOS

What is it like to be a photographer, when everyone is a photographer?

Summer School is an opportunity to see what photography and the world as processed through photographs look like right now. The exhibition is a comprehensive overview of works by today's photography students.

Original photograph: Ville Hietala From the series Young Athletes, 2012

The Summer School exhibition emerged out of interest in contemporary photographic culture. The exhibited artists are training to become photographers and building their futures on photography in a time that requires and produces more visual communication than ever before. These photographers, who have grown amidst an intense culture of images, challenge the photographers of previous generations. Is photography as democratic as the Finnish school system?

The exhibited photographers replied to the question: What is it like to be a photographer, when everyone is a photographer?

"Photography is an obsession, it is what I live for in everything I do."

"Photography, to me, is like a relationship; you have to care for it, so that we can grow together."

"My photographs are usually such that 'anyone' could have taken them – even a 5-year-old child or a half-blind old woman. There is something fascinating about this."

"It is about wholes, commitment, love, hanging in there, and not leaving."

"The ability to see through photography can be seen as part of humanity, in the same way as the ability to read and write."

Summer School presents works from 55 future names in photography, from six schools in the field. The audience will be invited to participate in this class photograph and discuss what is happening at the cutting edge of photography right now. If anyone can make a photographic record of anything, what is it that is recorded? Summer School presents various forms of photography and discusses what is being photographed. The works invite viewers to stop and study the images; constitute a community; experiment and seek; and change into records of performances, as photographers point their cameras at themselves or their loved ones.

The ideation of the exhibition and the selection of images were done collectively. The Union of Student Photographers of Finland, VOry, has been the voice of photography students for 40 years. This exhibition celebrates the 40 years of VOry.

7 May 2013, the opening day of the exhibition, will see the publication of a photographic book A Book of Lies - Väritettyjä totuuksia: 112 photographers, 327 photograph.  The book will be published by VOry and MustaTaide - Aalto Photo Books.

Mortti Saarnio: From the series Wood guns, 2013

8.5.-28.7.2013

PRESSPHOTOS

Finglish is a photographic documentary about Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians. It plainly reveals the dreams, utopias and homesickness of the immigrants, and documents their Finnish-flavoured American life.

Vesa Oja: Carl Pellonpaa, Ishpeming, Michigan, USA

The eight-year project began in 2004, when the photographer Vesa Oja (b. 1953) left for North America, following in the footsteps of his uncle and aunt. “The story of my uncle Eino is part of the history of hundreds of thousands of Finns, who set out to find streets lined with gold in North America. There are almost 800,000 of their descendants throughout the continent. Over the generations, everyday life has become American or Canadian. Mementoes of Finland in homes consist of flags, ornamental objects and national costumes. The tools and implements of grandparents may be kept and Finnish cuisine is cherished. Younger generations learn to bake traditional Finnish pulla coffee bread, Karelian pasties or rye bread using starter passed on from a grandmother,” Vesa Oja tells.

During his many trips, he photographed hundreds of Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians, their descendants, and places related to their history. He became familiar with the old and young folks speaking Finglish or broken Finnish, the landscapes in the Great Lakes region, FinnFests, Finntowns, and the villages of Kaleva, Toivola and Onnela. Oja heard unbelievable stories – happy, tragic and moving tales of what immigrant life was like far from Finnish shores.

A photography project of eight years finds its culmination in an exhibition, comprising some 70 photographs, soon to be shown at the Finnish Museum of Photography. Using traditional documentary methods, Finglish offers a trip through time, in which the past and the present meet, as presented with gentle humour and occasional wistfulness.

The exhibition will coincide with the publication of a photographic book entitled Vesa Oja: Finglish. Finns in North America with photographs by Vesa Oja and text by Vesa Oja and Päivi Oja. Published by MUSTA TAIDE / Aalto PHOTO Books.

Also making its debut at the exhibition is a short film, Rauntrippi Piutista Suppuriin, directed by Jenni Stammeier, which recounts Vesa Oja’s photography trips. The short documentary film sees Oja follow in the footsteps of Finns who left for North America. Oja drove for tens of thousands of kilometres and met hundreds of people. The short documentary tells the tales of Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians, and shows photographs not included in the exhibition or the related book.

Surreal Illusionism
Photographic Fantasies of the Early 20th Century

From 17 August to 15 December 2013

PRESSPHOTOS

"From a Friend", A.B.N. about 1904.

This autumn, the Finnish Museum of Photography embarks on a fascinating journey to explore largely unmapped territory: early photographic fantasy postcards. The late 19th and early 20th century witnessed a great upswing in popular art and technology. When the recently invented medium of photography merged with the novelty medium of the postcard, a phenomenon emerged that is unparalleled in art history. Photographic innovation became a vehicle for the popular imagination, and vice versa.

B.K.L., France 1903.

Professionally manufactured in Germany and France, the most beloved postcards spread around the world in their millions. While embracing technical innovations of modern photography, the imagery revelled in the unconscious, in romantic fantasies and mystical landscapes of the soul. The visual ambiguity of this bizarrely beautiful imagery anticipates many later developments in art.

In this exhibition the early years of the 20th century appear as a veritable cornucopia of surreal fantasy. We are presented with mysterious dreams, campy role-play, side-show curiosities and glamorous divas parading in all their glory. Here it is the era of Sigmund Freud that pulsates in all its fascinating strangeness. The exhibition attests to a vast richness of pictorial ideas, but also highlights poignant artistic quality – the very allure of the photographic image.

While the heyday of postcards waned with the First World War, postcards became the inspiration for many renowned artists. Pablo Picasso, Hannah Höch, Man Ray, André Breton and Paul Éluard were ardent admirers of postcard art. What was it in the old postcards that appealed to these radical aesthetes? One answer lies in the clever “photoshopping”: photomontage had become a mainstay in photographic postcards long before modernism discovered it. In the early 20th century, everything was possible, because everything was done by hand: with stage backdrops, cut-and-paste collage, hand tinting, and mixing drawing with photography.

The Finnish Museum of Photography is proud to present this most comprehensive selection of photographic fancies from the early 1900s. The curator of the exhibition is Harri Kalha, PhD, whose book on the topic, Ihme ja kumma (WSOY 2012), has attracted attention from experts both in Finland and abroad. The exhibition will present over 500 works in a variety of experiential settings that will forever change the way we look at old postcards.

The exhibition is part of Helsinki Festival 2013.

Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG), Berlin, Germany 1910.

"Dream", Société Idustrielle des Photographes, Paris, France, about 1905.