Uusi Suomi photos on display at Finnish Museum of Photography

2.5 million negatives saved with financial assistance from Finnish Cultural Foundation

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By Anu Uimonen
     
      In 2004, the Finnish Museum of Photography received a substantial donation, comprising the entire negatives collection of the lapsed Finnish daily Uusi Suomi: a total of some 2.5 million images.
     
After the last printed edition of Uusi Suomi had been published in November 1991, the paper’s photo archives ended up in the hands of Alma Media, one of the largest media companies in Finland, and of Iltalehti, originally the afternoon edition of Uusi Suomi.
      Iltalehti kept the photos but donated the negatives, files, and photography records to the museum.
      Since 2006, a major project has been under way at the Museum of Photography in order to have the donated negatives identified, indexed, restored, and digitized, with financial assistance from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
      An exhibition entitled Uuden Suomen tapaus ("The Uusi Suomi Affair") will now present a small selection of the treasures included in the donated collection.
     
The show will provide a small but important occasion to wind up the Photojournalism theme year 2008 at the Finnish Museum of Photography. At the same time, two other larger exhibitions are on display at the museum.
      The Ismo Hölttö and Mikko Savolainen Retrospective exhibition presents the work of two prominent classic figures in Finnish photo-documentarism.
      The Red Black White 1918 exhibition provides historical evidence for Finns to understand the psychohistorical importance of the traumatic events of 1918 and the Finnish Civil War.
     
The donated collection includes images from the 1930s to the 1990s, while the negatives from the early days of Uusi Suomi (established in 1847) have disappeared.
      ”We wish to raise a question of saving the old negative materials. To what extent should materials be saved of the large amounts of photo archives across Finland”? asks Elina Heikka, the Director of the Finnish Museum of Photography.
      "Large" is the operative word here: there are many such archives known to be in existence, and it is estimated that the vaults of the publishing houses alone contain something like 80 milion photographs. to that should be added the collections of individual photographers and photo studios.
      In practice, traditional film-based photography ended when it was replaced by digital photography at the turn of the millennium. New digital images are easy to store electronically, but the digitization of old film material is a major project.
     
If digitization is not done, plenty of old visual and cultural history will fall into oblivion.
      As it would be impossible to save all old materials, some choices should be made while resources should also be allocated to the project.
      ”Increasing resources for this purpose is a political decision”, Heikka points out, at the same time as she notes that museums and archives are already filled to bursting - who is to decide what and how much can be saved for posterity?
     
Typically, newspaper pictures depict everyday life, big festivals and celebrations, politics, sports, and arts.
      In other words a huge amount of contemporary events and phenomena which would be difficult to describe in any other way.
      The work of archiving the negatives, on which three to four researchers have been engaged since 2006, has now progressed to the 1950s and 1960s. And the closer to the present the team get, the more photos there are.
      As SLRs became increasingly common, so photojournalists would routinely shoot off a roll or two of 36 images on each subject, making for a massive task.
     
Originally the continuation of the earlier Finnish newspapers Suometar (1847-1866) and Uusi Suometar (1869-1919), Uusi Suomi was the official newspaper of the moderate conservative Finnish National Coalition Party from 1919 to 1976, and an independently conservative daily after 1976.
      Towards the end of the 1980s the newspaper was struggling with financial difficulties, and the last edition of the print newspaper Uusi Suomi was published in November 1991.
      In May 2007, it was announced that the Finnish company Nikotiimi had purchased the rights to the name "Uusi Suomi" from its owner Alma Media, and an independent online newspaper bearing that name started appearing from the autumn of 2007.
     
The Uusi Suomi Affair - 2.5 million negatives - Ismo Hölttö and Mikko Savolainen Retrospective - The Red Black White 1918.
      All three exhibitions are open until January 6th 2009 at the Finnish Museum of Photography (address: Tallberginkatu 1 G, Helsinki) from Tuesday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. For more Uusi Suomi photos, see www.uusisuomi.fi
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.9.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  From deadline to online journalism (8.1.2008)

Links:
  The Finnish Museum of Photography

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