Press Release from the Finnish Museum of Photography
September 13, 2011
Aki-Pekka Sinikoski: Finnish Teens
The photographer Aki-Pekka Sinikoski’s (b.1978) Finnish Teens exhibition, as the title says, fills the museum’s Project space from floor to ceiling with Finnish teens. Looking out from the walls of the space are the offspring of the torrent of images coming from the Internet. They appear in front of the camera as their own selves, unposed, but looking us straight in the eye. The pictures are unvarnished, but affectionate.
Sinikoski has sought out teenagers on the threshold of independence.
“Most of the young people in the photographs are still living with their parents, while their own identity is rapidly taking shape at the same time, so that serious conflicts can arise with the value systems of their childhood homes. The pictures come at the point of breakthrough, when the young person’s own wings will not yet bear them aloft, even though the rage to get out into the world is already burning strong.”
The young subjects have been photographed at home or elsewhere in their everyday environments, but the bright light that Sinikoski uses gives the pictures an advertising-like luminosity. “The pictures, as it were, show a world of fairy-tale stickers that everyday life has nevertheless ripped to shreds.”
The photographer himself thinks of his pictures as documentaries or short stories with overlapping plots. “This short-story collection tells of a life that they no longer feel is their own. It is a tale of waiting; waiting to find yourself again.”
Sinikoski is known as a multi-faceted portrait photographer. He has also worked as an arranger and curator of the Helsinki Biennale exhibitions since 2006.
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I’m Aki-Pekka Sinikoski. I was born in 1978 in Porvoo, southern Finland. Because my name is so damn long, ever since I was little most people called me Peki, which also happened to be the name of my father’s first dog.
I like the sea and the wind. And also coffee, biscuits and drawing. Drawing was my favourite pastime in the army. After the army I decided to spend a year in a demilitarised zone, the Åland Islands, where I started taking pictures on a daily basis.
I have made a living from photography since 2003.
In addition to photography, I have also been active in the field of arts quite widely. In the spirit of do-it-yourself, in 2008 I curated, arranged and organised the second Helsinki Biennale in the Design Museum. The theme of the Biennale was World Fair, and it included the work of 150 artists presented in pavilions.
At the time my intention was to continue working in the arts on a collective basis. These plans were halted, however, when my brother became ill and died in spring 2009. I no longer had the energy to be the person who brought people and things together. I began shooting the Finnish Teens series mainly so that I would not become friends with sorrow.
I was shooting the series for a long time, very much on a hit-and-miss basis, without a clear understanding why I was photographing teenagers. Afterwards I noticed, that I have been interested in change. In the borderline between childhood and adulthood, and the awakening identity that can be seen in this teenagers looking for themselves. However, in many images I also see an almost glossy surface, even quite a plastic reality that has been punctured by the everyday.
I believe that Finnish Teens is a colourful, gently humorous but sensitive photo document about the lives of Finnish teenagers. The photographs’ worlds interlink and complement each other like the individuals stories in a collection of novels.
I suggest that the collection of novels tells about life that you no longer feel is your own. I suggest that it is a story about waiting for your own wings to carry and discovering yourself again. The light only shines on the surface. What you see is a reflection. What do faces know about light?
Making of this exhibition was possible with the help of:
Suomen Kulttuurirahaston Uudenmaan rahasto
Uudenmaan taidetoimikunta
Patricia Seppälän Säätiö
Konstsamfundet
Botnia Print
