Vieraalla maalla (In a Foreign Place) II

The on-going 'Vieraalla maalla (In a Foreign Place)' project is induced by experiences of cultural misunderstandings that affect the way we perceive images and the surrounding world. In this fabricated outlandish world traditional Finnish, Carelian or Sami customs and practices have been given a slightly odd twist. Not deviating beyond recognisability for recipients with the relevant cultural knowledge, the scenes toy with proverbs and obsolete customs, rendering the images absurdly strange to a viewer unfamiliar with the cultural heritage. Drawing from personal experiences of cultural alienation and misunderstandings, and my Carelian origin, the work invites the recipients to strive to decipher and locate the depicted world, thereby denoting the arbitrary nature of our interpretations so easily taken for granted.

Rather than part of a coherent, unified, overarching narrative, each image in this body of work is an independent entity depicting a specific instance. The images from the project are typically exhibited in various combinations and installed to resisting narrative readings.