Niina Vatanen and Anni Leppälä (Contextual Research)

A Room's Memory

Niina Vatanen

Extract from the book The Helsinki School: A Female View -

"Niina Vatanen’s photographs resemble notes from a personal diary. Not those notes written to describe exact events, but those written to describe certain feelings or moods. Unlike a diary, however, her discreet entries do not follow a specific timeline or sequence. Inscribed by light, they become traces of moments past, little stories that trigger memories.
Niina Vatanen finds the narrative for her subjects either in her own experiences and observations or in novels and movies. The images are little stages in which she combines her different inspirations in order to create “possible events” that happened in time and in memory. The images are both contained and open, each one telling its own little story. Depending on arrangements or sequencing, they may suggest a multitude of different narratives.
Niina Vatanen’s photographs tell a tale of longing and fleeting memories. Her tales, intimate and fragile, give the viewer the impression that he or she is participating in something that is at once personal and universal."

I really like that her work is connected to her personal memories and moods, however each image can be interpreted differently. They are very universal, which create curiosity but also allowed to viewer to place together narratives of their own. In all of the portrait photography the girl remains anonymous, due to her face being covered or positioned in a certain way. There is a sense of lost identity, or even lost within the mind. Even though the images are so simple, they can bring so much meaning. 

I think light has also been used effectively, to reflect these moods and emotions Niina is trying to show. Also the relationship between nature and a women figure is interesting.  

Anni Leppälä

Extract from the book The Helsinki School: A Female View - 

•Her photographs are like subconscious visions... Fractured, open, associative, they trigger something in our minds that immediately connects us to our own memories.
•The artists images are anchored in a singular, specific moments, but banal, everyday content of each of her photographs allows this moment to become timeless and universal.
• •“My pictures are attempts to recognizing and shedding light on the obscure and vague movements. I want to approach the momentary quality of living through constancy. The paradox is that when you try to conserve or protect a moment by photographing it, you inevitably loose it at the same time.” 

Anni focuses on memories, and capturing a vague moment in time. Although her photographs are capturing a certain moment in time, that moment can still be lost due to simplicity of the photograph. Similar to Niina’s work the images are very universal but closed.