Photographs recall lost moments

"Our Land" photo exhibition reviews five decades

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By Anu Uimonen
     
      The first words to come to mind in the lyrics of the Finnish national anthem refer to valleys, hills, water, and shores - nature.
      Finland and being Finnish are strongly linked with those valleys, hills, water, and shorelines.
     
This can also be seen in a photo exhibition commemorating the 90th anniversary of Finnish independence: Our Land - Photographs from Finland. The exhibition opens immediately at the top of the stairs with the magnificent large pictures by Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo depicting sacred trees. In them is crystallised much about the eternal significance that nature holds for people.
      However, it is not an exhibition of nature photos. Taking the main role are the Finnish people and their common road through the past five decades.
      In addition to the exhibition, which opens today at the Tennis Palace Art Museum in Helsinki, there is a wonderful pictoral work in which the Finnish identity is pondered by Professor Juha Siltala.
     
The exhibition takes the viewer on a journey into a country that has undergone a tremendous structural change, moved from the countryside to the city - and yet still remains recognisably familiar - seen through the eyes of 23 photographers. Even from the oldest pictures we know immediately that this is Finland.
      And about the nature: it is there in even the most urban photographs, be it in the form of light on a summer night, or in the soil of a city dweller's allotment garden.
     
The lost world is shown in a most poignant way in the portraits of Ismo Hölttö from the 1960s, and in the pictures of the Roma people by Mikko Savolainen.
      At the same time the world is beginning to change: the baby boom generation begins to find a new youth culture, and the mass migration to Sweden starts to empty the countryside.
      These phenomena can be seen in the pictures of the Ruisrock music festival by Reijo Porkka and the Immigrant Finn series by Risto Vuorimies and Ben Kaila.
     
Compiled by Riitta Raatikainen, the exhibition is on display at the Tennis Palace Art Museum in a way that allows the viewer to follow both the passage of the decades, and the change in various phenomena.
      From Porkka's Ruisrock pictures from the 1970s there is a direct connection to the young people of the Helsinki by Night series of Stefan Bremer from the 1980s, and the Young Heroes of the late 1990s by Jouko Lehtola.
      The life of Finns in Sweden, depicted in the 1970s by Kaila and Vuorimies, can be compared with the pictures by Vesa Oja on the life of Finnish emigrants today in the United States and Canada.
     
Alongside the changes that have affected Finland, there are also changes in photography. The direct social document photography of the 1970s was followed by more intimate subjective expression and conceptual narrative methods. Large colour pictures came alongside black and white images.
      The works of Ulla Jokisalo, Ari Jaskari, Timo Kelaranta and Raakel Kuukka derive their material from their own immediate and extended families. By looking close at hand, they have found something more universal, which speaks to all of us: the lost Karelia, the relationship between mother and daughter, the chain of the generations.
      Replacing the black-and-white countryside of Hölttö and Savolainen are the colourful milieux of Jaakko Heikkilä, Esko Männikkö and Pekka Turunen. Strange environments can also be found in the pictures of Markus Jokela, which reflect the life of men in today's Finland.
      The series of portraits by Eetu Sillanpää moves from the 1980s through to the present decade. Veli Granö ponders the relationship between images and reality in his installation One to One.
     
In the exhibition the viewer experiences the joy of reunion both in pictures of a bygone world and in familiar, long-hidden images.
      True classics include pictures on the Sámi people by Jorma Puranen and the archipelago series of Pentti Sammallahti.
      In addition to Finns, one British photographer has been allowed to depict Finland and Finnishness: Martin Parr, who taught at the University of Art and Design in the 1990s.
      In the 1980s, Parr took pictures of the British way of spending holidays. In Finland he has also been interested in how people spend their free time, from ferries to Sweden to car shows.
     
Photographs are a very appropriate means of portraying Finnishness. All of the freshest visions are offered by a separate exhibition in the lobby of the Tennis Palace, comprising pictures on the theme by young Helsinki residents.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.5.2007
     
Our Land - Photographs from Finland: the exhibition is on display until September 9th at the Tennis Palace Art Museum (Salomonkatu 15, Helsinki) Tue. - Sun. 11:00 AM - 8:30 PM. Readers can discuss the photographs and also upload their own pictures at www.hs.fi/oimaamme.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tennis Palace Art Museum OUR LAND! - Photographs from Finland

ANU UIMONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
anu.uimonen@hs.fi