Does it feel familiar? – Photographs of everyday life in Finland

The exhibition provokes thoughts about financial worries, the sufficiency of social services, and the importance of family and friends at difficult times in life. There’s also a lot of hope and happiness in the images. Where does trust in the future come from? If we understood each other better, would it increase our ability to experience empathy and togetherness? Maybe it is the small coincidences that determine how our lives ultimately turn out?

Photographs by Pira Cousin, Aimo Hyvärinen, Susanna Juvakka, Taru Leinonen, Pasi Räsämäki, Arto Timonen, Adolfo Vera, Hannu Väisänen, Mikko Waltari, and Saana Wang.

In addition to images from 2016, photographs from the Finnish Museum of Photography collection, from the 1950s to the 2000s, have been selected for display at the exhibition.

Older photographs by Helvi Ahonen, Caj Bremer, Helge Heinonen, Ismo Hölttö, Per Olov Jansson, Ben Kaila, Raakel Kuukka, Eino Mäkinen, Kalervo Ojutkangas, Mikko Savolainen, Tapio Vanhatalo, and Pekka V. Virtanen.

The exhibition is based on a workshop entitled Arjen kuvat (‘Photographs of Everyday Life’), which was implemented by the Photographic Artists’ Association in 2016 as part of a University of Eastern Finland research project entitled Two Finlands – Is Inequality Increasing? The project combines social science research, journalism, and photographic art to discuss the increasing inequality in Finland in the 2010s. The photography workshop was led by Ida Pimenoff and Liisa Söderlund. The 400 photographs created in the workshop were donated to the collection of the Finnish Museum of Photography.

The Two Finlands project was funded by the Kone Foundation.

The exhibition has been supported by Tradeka.

Free admission for Tradeka members with PINS card.