Artist Talk: “Emerging Artists 2026: The Baltics & Finland”

Thank you.

Thank you everyone for the introductions in your own words.

So enjoyable now to hear it straight from you here that we have the honor of having you.

Let's try and tackle some of the subjects here.

One thought that I've had about the exhibition and the specific setup with your works is how we can see a lot of variation of working methods.

And there are very clearly kind of two ends of the line, one being analog photography, documentary approach, also black and white photography, like a classical side, let's say.

And then there's a very playful side, a very colorful side, crafty and like this world building side.

And thinking that here in the exhibition Photography in Power, which we also opened this week on the second floor, where we have a lot of world famous photographers and the exhibition focuses on the on photography's power of making worlds visible.

Here we also, in your exhibitions, can very clearly talk about building those worlds, building your own artistic character, your style.

So this is kind of the two ends of photographic medium.

of working in the photographic medium that I thought we could kind of start from world building and making the world visible kind of this documentary part and this crafty more crafty artistic world building side mythology making which already Karl and Anna-Maria in your both projects the mythology was a great part in as well So that's kind of the foundation I would suggest for a little conversation.

And one other aspect is is working with yourself, with your own private life, with very close subjects, and then bigger communities and more political questions, so the poetic and the private, this kind of two sides.

I might now just direct some questions based on that.

Maybe starting from the side of the more documentary approach and making the world visible through the camera.

Could you comment on...

How do you see the power of photography in revealing difficult subjects? Jeva, for your case as well, that you mentioned the ongoing war in Ukraine being a huge...

a huge influence to the project as well and seeing maybe other artists as well tackling the subject.

Do you want to comment on photography being a tool for these subjects?

Yes, I think in my case it's kind of like it's very natural.

I mean, I don't...

I kind of feel like I have to talk about it to remain sane on a personal level like I don't know how to explain it like I would feel it would feel to me to be dishonest to myself if I spoke about some other subjects um right now like I kind of feel that I have to like I feel privileged in a way to be an artist and to be invited to show my work in exhibitions.

I feel like it's, how to say, it's a privilege to be able to voice the issues and to give, because I'm given the platform to talk about anything I want, and I choose to talk about what I think is important to myself, but not only to myself.

I kind of feel that it's important to give platform to people who are in vulnerable positions.

Like my previous project, Uprooted, was about Ukrainian refugee women.

I kind of feel like it's important.