“There is a clarity of vision that seems to come out of the late evening northern summer light. The conceptual base is lucidly presented. There is an honesty and sincerity behind the work that is rare to find among a group of artists, (…) the borderland discourse, which touches the very idea of identity. Many Helsinki School pictures bear signs of Finnish culture, unconscious or not, meanings related to nature and remoteness. This is quite natural in a country so sparsely populated. These photographs seem to be presentations of artists who sink with themselves. (…) Their photographs seem to be covering something, preferably hiding and hinting than saying anything direct. Yes, there is ambiguity, yes there is a Northern loneliness, but it speaks very directly. There is a sense of isolation in the way several of the artists express their identity. Instead of direct contact with somebody in the picture, photographs became full of landscapes, empty spaces, and figures somewhere in distance.”
Alistair Hicks, 2014 The Helsinki School Vol. 5 p. 22 quoted Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Helsinki_School
The Helsinki School represents a selected group of artists who have been associated with the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland. What they collectively share is in how they use the photographic process as a tool for thinking. The concept for the project was introduced by Adjunct professor Timothy Persons in the early 1990s through his Professional Studies program. The platform was based on experimenting with hew methods of teaching and preparing master students for their artistic careers. Persons used his own personal experiences with the Open Studio concept and assignments during his graduate studies in Southern California in the 1970s, as a base to launch a new Nordic sensibility. It’s focus was more conceptually orientated, exploring different approaches in how to translate the passage of time, nature and the use of light as a raw material.
Today, the Helsinki School is still directed by Timothy Persons in Berlin. As of 2022, it is no longer associated with any specific academic institution. The Berlin based gallery Persons Projects promotes and curates the Helsinki School through numerous exhibitions, publications and lectures and acts as the primary gallery for many of its sic generations of artists.
Illka Halso
SANTERI TUORI
The small island of Kökar on the edge of the Åland archipelago has been his main place of interest. After finding a specific location, he photographs it from the same position, season after season, over many years. He then layers the images one on top of one another, sometimes interleaving a black-and-white negative with the color ones, to create his own unique compositions of “time being.” His concept of time perception expanded into his video productions, where he juxtaposes a still photograph with a background-projected moving image.
https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/santeri-tuori?x=works/videos/0ad9-forestlush1
https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/santeri-tuori?x=works/videos/foresttreeandpond003
https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/santeri-tuori?x=works/videos/waterfall-2
JORMA PURANEN
For over fifteen years I have been engaged in landscape related projects in which I have aimed to generally prevent the beholders from the opportunity of directly admiring the scenery by putting something in between them and the subject.
Puranen creatively merges aspects of mythology, history and dream-like landscapes with the fascination with the Arctic notion of the North Pole and polar exploration and landscapes of Finland. In Icy Prospects and Momentary Landscapes, Puranen uses a wooden board hand-paintedly lacquered in black to be held up as a mirror. Through this he handles to catch the reflected space behind the camera, that seemingly wavers between a painting and a photograph. In other works he photographs paintings at odd angles to record surface reflections.
Sandra Kantanen
I studied Chinese landscape painting and became completely obsessed with the idea of trying to understand their way of looking at nature. As I found most of the holy mountains they had been depicting for thousands of years, were almost destroyed by pollution or otherwise turned into tourist spots. It became for me a search for a landscape that doesn’t really exist, an idealised picture.
By imitating the photographic process of multiple exposure and inserting digital brush strokes, Kantanen blurs the line between the analogue and the digital to a point where the viewer cannot determine if the artworks true origin lies in photography or not.
https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/sandra-kantanen?x=works/works
Eeva Karhu
The human eye and memory are not like a camera, which records everything unselectively, because the experiences relayed by our visual receptors are always coloured by our emotions and other sensory impressions. In the Paths series Eeva Karhu uses multiple exposures to record time’s passage and reflect on time its cyclic nature.
I walk in a circle, on a path with no beginning or end. I photograph this path, where each new beginning is the horizon of the previous one. By layering my photographs, they form a collective image that documents my journey. In a sense, I record time and in so doing, I continue its movement forever.
In En Plein Air, she uses collage. She often inserts herself into the image.
RIITTA PÄIVÄLÄINEN
Temporary site-specific installations in nature, consisting of second-hand clothing and flea market fabrics.
For me, a piece of clothing represents, above all, its former wearer. It tells you that somebody has been present. However, the person who wore it is now gone. The faded colors and tears in the fabric show the signs of the time passed. By freezing the garment or letting the wind fill it with air, I am able to create a sculptural space, which reminds me of its former user. This “Imaginary Meeting” represents, for me, the subtle distinction between absence and presence.
https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/riitta-pivlinen?x=works