Past exhibitions

Zanele Muholi is a South African LGBTQIA+ activist and among the most influential international photographers working today.

Cartes-de-visite were the biggest photographic craze of the 19th century and early 20th century. The exhibition Cartes-de-visite from the Finnish Museum of Photography showcases cards from 1894 to 1920 at Länsilinkki in Ruoholahti.

The main exhibition of Helsinki Darkroom Festival – organized for the first time – celebrates current darkroom art and the creative possibilities of analogic photography.

The historical exhibition presents unprecedented gems from the early stages of Finnish photographic art from the beginning of the 20th century.

The retrospective exhibition of the work of Susanna Majuri (1978–2020), titled Love, gathers together photographs from her entire career: her most well-known pieces are shown side by side with less common early works.

Poetry and political resistance are inextricably intertwined in the artistic work of Cecilia Vicuña. The Chilean artist's works are on display for the first time in Finland.

What if a crow could take photographs? What kinds of photos would it take? What would the world look like through the eyes of a bird? Opening in October 2021, the title of the fifth Festival of Political Photography is ‘Bird’s-Eye View’. The festival reflects, through photography, on the capacity of humans to imagine the perspective of birds and to understand the world in an alternate way through that lens.

The exhibition brings photographs by Vuosaari based photographers to Vuosaari House gallery.

Uwa Iduozee is a photographer and documentarist who strives to tell stories that are often neglected in mainstream media. Iduozee focuses particularly on structural racism and its impacts in both crisis situations and in day-to-day life.

The exhibition Our natures – Interpretations of National Romanticism by the Finnish Museum of Photography's young adults' group Photofuss draws reflection on "Finnishness" today. The word nature in the title refers to human nature and natural environments—this duality is studied both together and…

Vivian Maier returns to Helsinki with a new exhibition focusing on street photography

In her work, Maria Kapajeva explores the stereotypes, expectations and roles that women continue to face.

Mitä on hyvä elämä silloin kun uusi ja tuntematon muuttaa tutun toiseksi? Vuosaarelaisten valokuvanäyttely levittäytyy Vuosaaren kauppakeskus Columbukseen. Näyttely on osa Vuosaari 21 -hanketta.

The museums collection exhibition asks if a camera can be racist.

The photographic series Atlas of Emotions by Jari Silomäki (b. 1975) is a record of 21st century events: the rapid rise in prosperity and inequality in developing countries, the shared server-run home country that is the Internet, the public presentation of personal histories and privacy protection…

The Finnish Museum of Photography's new exhibition space, named K1, will be opened with an inaugural showcase, featuring two exhibitions in one — Coco Chanel and An Evening with Marilyn — from Canadian photographer Douglas Kirkland (b. 1934). The photographs depict two iconic women who developed a…

Media artist Liisa Vääriskoski's Munalissu is a feminist alter ego and art project that blurs the line between reality and fiction. The main platform used for the project is Instagram.

Clare Gallagher's exhibition The Second Shift is an attempt to recognise the complexity and value of the invisible housework and childcare primarily carried out by women on top of their paid employment.

AdeY’s images are driven by a particular focus and attention on people’s right to differences, primarily with regard to differences in physical appearance, gender, race and sexuality.

Still life has a curious force that makes us see everyday things anew, to observe the overlooked.

In summer 2020 the Finnish Museum of Photography will exhibit the works of photographer Sanna Kannisto (b. 1974), spanning a period of 20 years. This will be Kannisto’s largest exhibition to date. Sense of Wonder is a cross-section of the artist’s career, including her long-term photographic work…

In January 1968, a US Air Force bomber carrying nuclear weapons crashed onto ice along the coast of Greenland. In South Korea, a group of scientists is attempting to clone a mammoth using DNA preserved in permafrost. In the Illgraben valley in Switzerland, scientists use an electronic alarm system…

Humanity has now left behind the Holocene, a geological era in which the globe has been since the last ice age, and entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. In the Anthropocene, the human influence on the Earth is so great that the change is irreversible; in a sense, it is a point of no return.  …

Class 9D of the Vuoniitty Comprehensive School has been the friendship class of the Finnish Museum of Photography from 2017 to 2020. The exhibition #teenmirror displays new photographs inspired by Vivian Maier's self-portraits and older photographs from previous exhibitions by Vuoniitty friendship class. Selected parts of the exhibition are on display at the Columbus shopping mall in Vuosaari 14.5 - 1.6.2020.

The passport can fulfill its function of opening doors only if the human body is linked to it in a reliable way. As identification methods have evolved and control increased, the body's relationship to the passport has been in a constant state of flux. In the 19th century, the holder's name was…

Vivian Maier (1926–2009) was an American photographer whose extensive body of work has stormed into the public eye since her death with numerous exhibitions and a documentary film. Maier remained a keen photographer throughout her adult life but never sought to showcase her work. Instead, she…

The Unfold exhibition introduces a group of photographic artists from the master's degree program in photography at Aalto University. The exhibition showcases the multi-device nature and conceptualism of modern photography. The exhibition, which was created as a result of close collaboration…

“We are the last generation that can stop climate change.” The Last Generation exhibition by Photofuss group contemplates current environmental issues.

The classic series of photographs Finnish Everyday Life (1971) by Caj Bremer (b. 1929), who reinvented photojournalism in Finland, was brought to life after Bremer gave up his daily newspaper work to tour the country, supported by a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Bremer wanted to…

Some Observations on the Political System of Finland (2015–2019) is a documentary trilogy by photographer Sakari Piippo.

Photographer Rasoul Khorram (b. 1980) recorded the life of his elderly mother Halima Khanomilla in a series of photographs over a period of three years in Oshnavieh, Kurdistan, Iran, on the border of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. The photographs show his mother going about her daily chores, tending to…

The Finnish Museum of Photography collection also includes photographs by artists that publish mainly on Instagram.