Perttu Saksa

I will focus on working at Saari Residence with photography techniques from the 19th century. I’m interested in how the medium and the object being photographed affect each other. What happens when traces of chemicals, corrosion and analogue photography techniques that contain errors and organic traces begin to dominate the photograph over the subject itself? Historical layers and the presence of materiality refer to the history of making – and viewing – photographs. When we look at a photograph, do they make us more aware of the impact that memories, history, presence and absence have on us?

I look forward to having the peace at Saari Residence to stop and examine what I do. Alongside analogue photographs, I will work on the material for my upcoming exhibition and edit the texts for it at Saari Residence. I hope that my time at Saari will open up new paths for me and, at the same time, carry my unfinished processes towards completion.

My working process typically consists of overlapping things – I work on several projects at the same time, which may be very draining as they pile up, but at the same time, the layers and overlaps often help me work and think.

WWW.PERTTUSAKSA.COM

Perttu Saksa is a Master of Fine Arts (Academy of Fine Arts, 2008) and has held exhibitions in Finland and abroad since the early 2000s. Saksa’s works can be seen in numerous public collections, and he was a candidate for the Ars Fennica award in 2017 and the winner of the Fotofinlandia Award in 2014.