17.09. - 04.11.
screening Lindenstrasse 35 Berlin,
daily 6 pm – 12 am
17.09. - 04.11. 2021

25 years of the Helsinki School

PASI AUTIO, ELINA BROTHERUS, HANNU KARJALAINEN, SANNA KANNISTO, JARI SILOMÄKI, SANTERI TUORI | CURATED BY TIMOTHY PERSONS

This presentation celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Helsinki School and focuses on video as an essential element within the framework of its history.

In this third edition of Image to Image, we extend our platform to connect with our current exhibition, "New Perspectives Through Photography," in Taidehalli, Helsinki, Finland. Here we feature 6 of the most essential artists using video as an extension to their photographic works, who have evolved from the Helsinki School experience. These selected pieces vary in years that historically begin in the late 1990s with Santeri Tuori and Elina Brotherus.
The Helsinki School is one of the most internationally known Finnish art phenomena. It represents a unique approach to education but more so in how the generations of artists shared a collaborative dialogue that enabled each artist to find their creative voice. There is no one single line that defines the Helsinki School's contextual configuration. What they all have in common is how they use the photographic and video process as a tool for thinking.
This video presentation explores and visualizes how these selected artists use the passage of time as one of their raw materials in collecting nature's cycles, as seen in Santeri Tuori's pieces. At the same time, Pasi Autio is fascinated by how we use our human nature as a guide to navigating around a single moment in time or a specific train of thought. Sanna Kannisto, on the other hand, utilizes a more scientific approach in how she gathers her subjects for observations by creating situations where the observer becomes observed. Jari Silomäki and Hannu Karjalainen draw upon different strains from history ranging from the political spectrum to modernism as means for their creative interpretations. Elina Brotherus, throughout her entire career, has used herself as her primary source for inducing situations for self-portraiture for visually translating the human condition and the female position within it.