HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Christa Blackwood (@artcandyfilm), United States. “Boy Play”. Exhibited at Hesperian Esplanadi and the Old Customs House.

Boy Play is portraits of young men, their bodies and faces resplendently painted in hues of pink and blue. With its focus on gender and binary colour coding, Boy Play playfully comments on the successes and failures of masculine masquerade. The work, shot in-camera with large-format film equipment, features Blake, Morgan and Richard—the same models Christa Blackwood collaborated with for The Boys of Collodion, a black-and-white series of portraits from 2013. The make-up and blue and pink hues were inspired by a relationship she had with a deeply closeted man. Over time, Blackwood became aware of and acquainted with a number of other closeted men: men who present themselves as straight, while keeping other facets of their sexual identities hidden. The public persona each of them presents serves as a mask that allows them to be seen in contrast to their actual selves. Obviously, sexuality is much more complicated than a mere gay, bi, or straight identity. It is Blackwood’s hope that Boy Play reflects this complexity, in part by casting young male bodies in varying shades of color - representing the blush and blur of fluid gender and sexual identities.

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective and David Lynch “Infinite Deep” exhibitions at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Nuno Serrão (@nunoserrao), Portugal. “In Between”. Exhibited in Kansallismuseo.

Nuno’s blank slate starts with a functional level of emotion, logic, minimalism, and curiosity. The artist considers these to be his metric system. Curiosity often leads Nuno to document frameable micro-narratives that, in the end, will pose a whole new set of questions. With the sum of all relatable questions, he thinks he’ll get an answer.

“Equilibrium is a state in which all competing forces are balanced. I don’t think such a thing can exist in perpetuity, neither does the universe, or there wouldn't be one. I’m interested in what happens in between all opposing sides, dark versus light, good versus evil, past versus future, happiness versus sadness. It’s in this space that I find most of my inspiration.” Serrão

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective and David Lynch “Infinite Deep” exhibitions at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

M'hammed Kilito, Morocco (@mhammed_kilito). “Among You”. Exhibited at The National Museum of Finland, Cultural Centre Stoa and Korjaamo Culture Factory.

Among You reflects the choices around personal identity for Moroccan youth through a selection of portraits of young people who take their destinies into their own hands. These individuals have the courage to choose their own realities, often pushing the limits of society further. Whether it be through their creative activities, their appearance, or their sexuality, they convey the image of a young Morocco - alert, changing, claiming the right to be different and celebrating diversity. These young people, whose minds embody the resistance of a palm tree – a tree adapted to the harshest Moroccan climatic conditions – defy the conservative and traditional norms of Moroccan society on a daily basis. They cultivate their private oasis despite the obstacles they encounter in a country that they feel is not progressing at the same pace as they are, and inspire others along the way.

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective and David Lynch “Infinite Deep” exhibitions at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Laura Brichta (@laurabrichta), Germany. “Some Sort of Now”. Exhibited at Hesperian Esplanadi and the Old Customs House.

The photographic series Some Sort of Now shows Brichta’s staged worlds paired with the architectural cosmos of the Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill. With their large surface area and overlapping building sections, Bofill’s work offers numerous perspectives and forms an ideal basis for a translation into Brichta’s pictorial language. Ricardo Bofill’s architecture has a way of playing with the private and social spaces of the buildings - the inner and the outer world of its inhabitants. They merge in unexpected ways and give an insight into his own interpretation of connectivity. This approach can also be found in Brichta’s artistic process. She constantly explores the boundaries between the intimate, personal and the outer rational world in search of a balance. In this series of photographs, fragments of human bodies fuse with the concrete structure of the buildings and break up the hard architecture with their curves and fragility. This creates a very personal approach to the architect's surrealist constructions.

Carefully placed limbs, bending to frame the world that is to be discovered. Through mere fragments and glimpses they serve to illustrate the emotion of this world. The abstracted bodies are separated from their identities in order to merge with their environment. These photographs describe a utopian world in which the confining edges of the buildings seem to dissolve. The existing geometry of the architecture in interaction with the curves of the human body call into question the division of space. It is not possible to determine which walls further define the boundaries of the space and where they lead. These moments of irritation and the resulting questions accompany the photographs, preventing stagnation and giving space to individual perception. The static construct of architecture becomes an almost flowing structure in which the human body constitutes the supporting element.

#helsinkiphotofestival #helsinki #photography #finland ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Marco Sanges (@sanges_studio), Italy. “Circumstances”. Exhibited at Sörnaistenlaituri and the main exhibition in the Old Customs House.

Greatly attracted to the cinema and in particular the luminous black and white films of the silent era, Marco Sanges creates photographs in sequence. Every sequence tells a unique, multi-layered story. In this analogue project, Sanges wanted to capture the power of characters, bigger than life being themselves without any restriction or regulation by the government. Instead, they choose to be free revealing the various states of consciousness of the character and exploring the dualities between content and absence, space and surface. Be in a scene, as a scene in a film unfolds into a story.

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective exhibition and David Lynch “Infinite Deep” exhibition at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Christian Bobst (@christian_bobst_photography), Switzerland. “The Sufi Brotherhoods of Senegal”. Exhibited in Pyhän Birgitan puisto.

In Senegal, 95 percent of Muslims belong to a Sufi Brotherhood. For Sufis, peace and tolerance are important values, spirituality and closeness to God are more important than dogmas and strict adherence to religious rules. Senegal has never experienced an attack in this age of international terror in contrast to its neighbouring countries such as Mali or Mauritania. The West African country is regarded as an anchor of stability. This has a lot to do with the trust of the Senegalese people in their religion and their spiritual leaders. When tribal leaders called for the raising of arms against the French, during colonial times, Cheikh Amadou Bamba Mbacke (1853 - 1928), the founder of the Sufi Brotherhood of the Mourids, taught his numerous followers that the true Jihad is not war by force of arms, but the fight against inner demons. Even today, most Senegalese are fervent supporters of Bamba's pacifist teachings. The Senegalese engage in a strong personality cult around the founders of their four largest Sufi-brotherhoods and their descendents. While saints are a taboo in most Islamic countries, the names and portraits of the founding fathers of the Sufi brotherhoods can be found on the lettering of colourfully painted buses, as posters in shopping centres and textile factories, on taxis. Although Senegal has a secular form of government, Islam is much more than a religion in the country. It is a lifestyle that permeates the entire society. The Sufi Brotherhoods of Senegal photo essay shows how the Sufi Brotherhoods and their religious leaders shape Senegalese society and how they maintain power and wealth, but also peace and stability in the country by relying on a tolerant form of Islam.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #trust #discoverhelsinki #art #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Robert Rutöd (@rutoed), Austria. “Right Time Right Place”. Exhibited at Birgitan puisto II.

Being at the right place at the right time is usually associated with happiness and success. But what happens when we are in the right place at the wrong time? Do we even know that this is the right place? And what if it turns out that it is the wrong place after all? But at the right time!

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective exhibition and David Lynch “Infinite Deep” exhibition at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Gordon Spooner (@gordon.spooner), France. “LetGo”. Exhibited in Kansallismuseo.

“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Why are we told to believe stability is desirable? History has proved that everything is temporary. The only thing which has proved permanent is, in fact, instability. Why not accept and embrace instability? The series LetGo is an ode to that uncertainty, to the moment where we leave our comfort zone. The moment in which forward is the only way possible. The moment we decide to put our faith in the future.

Gordon Spooner’s earliest photo album is from when he was around 10 years old portraying holiday snaps in black and white, taken with a Kodak Instamatic. Places he had been, the pet tortoise and steam trains. He learned to develop black and white film aged around 16 years old. Gordon’s parents didn’t consider photography to be a “proper job” so the artist decided to study cartography in London instead. Spooner claims to have watched European movies alone at the Essential on Wardour Street, where he discovered Nicolas Roeg, Luis Buñuel and French cinema. Early into his studies, Gordon realised that cartography wasn’t going to keep him interested for very long which led him to apply for work at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Spooner wanted to make movies that had inspired him and quickly learned cinematography in Paris. He continued taking photographs of models for their portfolios, however, modelling agencies thought his pictures weren't happy enough, so he switched to taking portraits of his friends instead. The thread in everything Spooner has ever done is the suggestion of a narrative. He wants his photographs to resemble the movies that marked him.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #trust #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Elena Kollatou (@elena_kollatou) & Leonidas Toumpanos @leonidas_toumpanos_photography), Greece. “Where we do not belong”. Exhibited at Kansallismuseo.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has triggered geopolitical disarray in the Baltic Sea and has created Allies and rivalries among the bordering countries. Nord Stream 2 is a project that results in a geopolitical disarray, since the business between Germany and Russia has the potential to profoundly impact the Central European geopolitical scene, challenging the security of many European countries and deepening economic inequality among them. Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic countries consider that the pipeline will make the EU reliant on Russian gas and thus giving away too much control to Russia while destabilizing Ukraine by depriving the country of gas transit fees; at the same time Northern Europe and Germany believe that the economic benefits outweigh this issue. With this controversial project as a motive, Elena and Leonidas departed on a journey along the Baltic coastline in order to reveal the secrets, trace the bonds and track down the conflicting matters that this Sea holds. The findings were simultaneously concrete and vague; non-descriptive situations represent the quotidian space of the people that inhabit these countries and who act as political mediators between East and West. Layering different realities in a single image imparts this ambiguity, since the individual depictions only fragmentary succeed in representing the real. Ripped images are constructing a visual tale and inviting the viewers to draw their own conclusions.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #trust #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Seunggu Kim (@k.seunggu), Republic of Korea. “Better Days”. Exhibited at Sörnäistenlaituri (C5).

South Korea has been developing rapidly over the past 40 years which has caused a lot of social ironies. One of the ironies is working long hours with only a very short break.
Koreans try their best to enjoy their holidays but due to lack of time to travel, they mostly spend their time in the city. Therefore, the leisure places around Seoul and its suburbs try to present something interesting to entertain their customers with. By doing so, all of the western and Korean cultures are mixed together. The "Better Days" describes Korean spectacles from the way they enjoy their short vacation.

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective exhibition and David Lynch "Infinite Deep" exhibition at WT1 (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Federico Estol (@federicoestol), Uruguay. “Shine Heroes”. Exhibited at Birgitan puisto I.

There are 3000 shoe shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz and El Alto suburbs each day in search of clients. They are of all ages and in recent years have become a social phenomenon in the Bolivian capital. What characterizes this tribe is the use of ski masks so they will not be recognized by those around them. They confront the discrimination they face through these masks. In their neighbourhoods, no one knows that they work as shoe shiners, at school, they hide this fact, and even their own families believe they have a different job when they head down to the centre of the city from El Alto. The mask is their strongest identity, which makes them invisible while uniting them. This collective anonymity makes them tougher when facing the rest of society and is their resistance against the exclusion they suffer because they carry out this work.

For three years, Federico Estol has been collaborating with sixty shoe shiners associated with the shoe shiners newspaper "Hormigón Armado". Together they planned the scenes during a series of graphic novels workshops including backgrounds of the new Andean architecture of El Alto. He spent three years of a participative essay with the shine heroes as producers and actors of a street photobook newspaper style to fight against social stigma. Today this group sells the newspaper more than being shoeshiner, the art transforming discrimination into a sign of struggle and survival that helps the social integration.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Daniel Minsky (@dani_minsky), Argentina. “Self Managed Factories”. Exhibited at Stoa.

Around the year 2000 in Argentina financial speculation was much more profitable than productive work. The country was immersed in a de-industrialization plan, its external debt grew and poverty increased. Many factories were emptied and demolished by their owners in a deliberate way. Employees with several months without receiving their salaries were left without work or compensation. In a negative political context, there were no other work options. Several manufacturing plants were occupied by their workers who restarted the production. They had the difficulties of not having supplies, money to purchase materials and in several cases not having the machinery that was extracted or intentionally ruined by their fraudulent owners. The workers favoured strength and experience at work and they no longer had to serve under a hierarchical order that would leave them only with little income after all deductions. Collectively the workers repaired and restored the machinery and obtained supplies. They recovered the factories and fought for the expropriation that made them owners of their work. After that crisis period, many other factories have been converted into self-managed cooperatives. Self-managed factories do not have an owner either a boss. All workers are cooperative members and they share the factory income. They have an elected president that takes the fast and simple decisions, the elected directory is in charge of more relevant things but all substantial and important aspects are decided in assemblies. This photographic work shows three examples of recovered factories working today and that break the habit of a rich employer and poor workers.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Ami Vitale (@amivitale), United States. “The Guardian Warriors”. Exhibited in Kansallismuseo.

Ami Vitale began The Guardian Warriors project ten years ago, after she heard about a plan to airlift four of the world’s last northern white rhinos from a zoo in the Czech Republic to Kenya. It was a desperate, last-ditch effort to save a species. At the time, there were only eight of these rhinos left, all living in captivity. When the artist saw this gentle, hulking creature in the Czech snow, surrounded by smokestacks and humanity, it seemed so unfair. It looked ancient, part of a species that has lived on this planet for millions of years, yet could not survive humanity. On March 19, 2018, Ami made the heartbreaking journey back to Kenya to say goodbye to Sudan, the world's LAST male northern white rhino alive on the planet. This image is of the final moment when Joseph Wachira, one of Sudan's dedicated keepers, went to give him one more rub behind his ear before he died.
We are witnessing extinction right now, on our watch. Poaching is not slowing down. If the current trajectory of killing continues, it’s entirely possible that rhinos will be functionally extinct in our lifetime. Without rhinos and elephants and other wildlife we suffer more than loss of ecosystem health. We suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of beautiful possibilities. When we see ourselves as part of nature, we understand that saving nature is really about saving ourselves. Sudan taught Ami that. These are a series of images about the relationships and bonds between humans and endangered species. They understand how important TRUST is for a healthy planet and not just with one another, but with the creatures we coexist with. We must begin to see our world as part of the natural world; the natural world as part of our world. Our fates are linked. Losing one part of nature, is a loss for all of nature.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #trust #discoverhelsinki #art #retrospective #helsinki #photo #helphoto ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Svante Gullichsen (@gullichsen), Finland. “Natural Outlaw”. Exhibited at Birgitan puisto II.

Natural Outlaw breaks the rules of nature and shows the hidden parts of a Nordic mindscape.
We build barricades around ourselves and while they're supposed to protect us when we're vulnerable, they’ll start to pile up slowly and eventually we’ll feel like we’re suffocating.
After big fights there's a quiet calm and for a brief moment everything feels clear. If there's a big cold void in you, you need to escape it. Avoid it. Do not sink. Darkness and light will fight in us forever. Light finds dark in most places but there's always a corner where the beams can't reach.
Over time nature will take back its own. And so will human nature.

Explore the HELPHOTO Retrospective exhibition and David Lynch "Infinite Deep" exhibition at WT1 till February 28th (Sun-Wed 11.00-18.00, Thu-Sat 11.00-23.00).

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #anarchy #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2019. Theme: Anarchy.

Siliang Ma (@siliangma), China. “Studio Practice”. Exhibited at Pyhän Birgitan Puisto and the Old Customs House.

Most of Siliang Ma's work has been made in a photography studio. He plays with objects in an isolated space as if to observe the instability of meaning in the laboratory environment. Ma’s photography practice is a paradoxical finishing: it proves and disproves the authenticity of the photograph simultaneously as the shutter is clicked. On the one hand, the photograph visualizes the experience of being. But on the other hand, seeing is manipulated and restricted within the two-dimensional surface through the intervention of control and power. It makes photography an ideal medium of ideological output where being that once complex and abundant is deducted to symbol, composition, tone, metaphor, code… and meaning is turned into a product of choice. From chaos to order, random to controlled, uncertainty to certainty, this authoritative way of seeing interpenetrated with politics, culture and reality itself composed the poetics of our age.
Siliang Ma graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a master's degree in photography. He had worked in advertising photography for many years before he went to art school. In his definition, photography has nothing to do with reality. Rather, it is a tool to create idealized unreality by manipulating realistic symbols. He applied this method that he learned from advertising in the making of art in which he inherits realism characteristic from photography but defamiliarizing it through modification, rearrangement, sculpturing... to create a non-binary realistic-unrealistic system.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #trust #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Oskar Alvarado (@oskaralvarado.photography), Spain. “Where Fireflies Unfold”. Exhibited at the National Museum of Finland, Korjaamo Culture Factory, Tähtitorninvuoren puisto, and JCDecaux Finland.

“The majority of those born in the cities resulting from rural emigration in the 60s and 70s have a common place that unites us: Our parents’ village. Deleitosa is my village. It is located in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura in Spain. Here my parents, grandparents, great grandparents and other ancestors were, going back through centuries of family genealogy.” Alvarado

Deleitosa was the village in which Eugene Smith chose to realize his photographic essay Spanish Village that was published in the American magazine Life on April 9, 1951. Far from showing the perceptible appearance of Deleitosa or some of the visual references linked to what was a photographic icon of the social and economic backwardness in Spanish rural society, the author's gaze had some subjective nuances linked to a series of experiences, places and memories. Reminiscences that have endured as apparitions in his memory. Images that intermingle episodes that float in the collective imagination with the new realities that coexist in the village. There is an emotional need to trust in the evolution of the territory of which we are part. To explore our identity in the echo of the places that still speak to us or in the absence-presence of people and beings that inhabit them. To conform to a visual interpretation that evokes the mystery that manifests itself in everyday rhythms, in the poetic condition that underlies the strange.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #kunst #trust #fineartphotography #discoverhelsinki #art #exhibiting #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto #valokuva #valokuvanäyttely #thisisfinland #finland #visithelsinki #portofhelsinki #HelsinginSatama ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Dilla Djalil Daniel (@dilla_djalil_daniel_photo), Indonesia. “The Trust of the Matter”. Exhibited in Kansallismuseo.

The Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital (FAE), where the images of The Trust of the Matter were shot, is the first elephant hospital in the world. It is dedicated solely to the care of these giant, yet sensitive and emotional mammals. The hospital was founded in 1993 by a Thai woman called Soraida Salwala. It is located in the Mae Yao National Reserve in Lampang, Thailand. The FAE is a non-governmental organisation that gives free care to sick elephants as well as provides free room and board for the mahouts (elephant caretakers). All of the domestic elephants in this hospital have either been abused, are sick, injured, or expecting elephants, about to have calves. Many of these elephants belong to elephant tourism camps. Most of the elephant patients stay in the hospital temporarily, however, there are five resident elephants that have been living there right from the beginning.
Three of them are permanently injured landmine victims, two of which, Motala and Mosha, have each had one of their legs amputated below the knee. Nonetheless, they are quite fortunate, as in 2008 Mosha had her first bespoke prosthetic leg especially crafted and designed for her. She is the first elephant in the word to wear a prosthetic leg. As for Motala, she got her first one in 2009. From time to time Motala and Mosha walk around the compound on their prosthetic limbs. It took years for the vets and paramedics to rehabilitate them and the recovery has been a long journey, involving constant treatment, patience and loving care. Each of these five permanent resident elephants has suffered their own traumatic experiences. It takes great patience and dedication from the vets, mahouts and hospital staff to gradually build the mutual trust and bond with these gigantic mammals.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #photographyexhibition #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #taide #trust #discoverhelsinki #art #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto ...

HELPHOTO RETROSPECTIVE - Winner Open Call Helsinki Photo Festival 2020. Theme: Trust.

Sasha Maslov, Ukraine. “Ukrainian Railroad Ladies”. Exhibited in Karhupuisto.

Ukrainian Railroad Ladies is a series of portraits of women who work as traffic controllers and safety officers at railroad crossings in Ukraine. These women spend the majority of their long shifts enclosed in the little railway houses built along the track for them. The series studies Ukrainian rural and suburban landscapes where the exteriors of these railroad houses play a prominent role. The project depicts the intimate details of interiors of these houses and invites the viewer to meet the Railroad Ladies themselves. Ukrainian Railroad Ladies is also an exploration of Ukrainian mentality, trust and challenge to the existing system, and why this profession still exists in the 21st century, given the almost full automatization of railroad crossings in Ukraine and around the world. It is a study of the anthropological and social aspects of this particular profession and the role and importance of the railroad in Ukraine in general. The country has been consumed by political turmoil: A war in the East and loss of its territory to an aggressive neighbor, never mind the endless corruption and permanently troubled economy. In Ukraine, people pay little attention to the women they see from a train window, most often holding a folded yellow flag (a sign to the train engineer that all is well on the tracks ahead). The yellow flag is a symbolic sign of assurance and trust. Although the country and the world are consumed with much larger issues, the people with folded yellow flags play a big, yet silent role in Ukrainian everyday life. In the storm, it’s often hard to see the lighthouse. Ukrainian Railroad Ladies are that lighthouse. They are a symbol of certain things in this country that don’t change, standing firm in the present as a defiant nod to the past. Unfazed by the passing of trains and time, they are here to stay.

#helsinkiphotofestival #photography #festival #exhibitionsinfinland #contemporaryart #trust #discoverhelsinki #art #retrospective #helsinki #photo #culture #exhibition #helphoto ...