The Helsinki School
The Helsinki School represents far more than a selected group of photographers from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. It has been the model for a new approach to education as well as a vehicle for collaborative thought and cooperation. Even more, it is a shared vision that began as an experiment in the early nineteen-nineties and eventually evolved into one of the more recognizable teaching programs in the world.
Designed by Timothy Persons, Jorma Puranen, and the then acting director of the school Yrjö Sotamaa, the program sought from the beginning to initiate and advance new career opportunities that were virtually nonexistent at the time for graduating MA photography students. Finland had just emerged from the devastating recession of the early nineteen-nineties and thus found itself in a moment of economic and cultural stagnation. The cultural climate for galleries was provincial and lacked international standards by which to measure itself.
While the stylistic and thematic approaches with the Helsinki School are by no means homogenous, there is a thread that connects one generation to another in the conceptual way that they perceive and present their ideas.
The photos presented here are from the Fresh Breeze from the North! Images of Nature from the Helsinki School exhibition, which was on show in 2020 at Kunsthalle St Anne in Lübeck Germany. The exhibition was curated and produced by Dr. Antje-Britt Mählmann and Timothy Persons, in conjunction with Aalto University. It brought together 12 Helsinki School artists including: Elina Brotherus, Joakim Eskildsen, Ilkka Halso , Tiina Itkonen, Jaakko Kahilaniemi , Sanna Kannisto, Anni Leppälä, Susanna Majuri, Jorma Puranen, Riitta Päiväläinen, Mikko Rikala, Santeri Tuori. Their works touch on subject of nature and landscape.
The exhibition explored how each of the 12 artists use nature and landscape as a means for conceptualizing their own internal scenery and capture the complex emotional attributes that determine what our individual nature looks like. An awareness of the relatedness between nature and culture and an intuitive sense of space is apparent in all of these works. Historically, Nordic culture abides by the power of the four seasons, enduring its grace and wrath year after year; reminding us how fragile we humans are.
In conjunction with this exhibition, the Helsinki School – The Nature of Being, Volume 6 was published by Hatje Cantz.
For more on The Helsinki School https://www.helsinkischool.fi/
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