FATHER

Empowering Photographs

at Jugendsali 17 October 2007 - 13 January 2008, Helsinki

The main exhibition at Jugendsali in autumn 2007 is “FATHER – Empowering Photographs”. It is a community art project of 15 amateur photographers carried out with the method of empowering photography. The curator and process instructor of the project is photographer Miina Savolainen. The choice of subject and the approaches are based on the photographers’ life experiences and a personal fatherhood process lasting for over two years.

The aspects to fatherhood were found through the photographers’ experiences as fathers and of childhood. The different world of experiences and meanings of men and women makes the photos more interesting and varied. To a son a father can be an object for identification, while a daughter may compare the men in her life with her father. In a photograph children can see themselves through their fathers’ eyes or a man can watch himself in the father role. One can look at the father living in one’s memories from a slightly different angle than as a child.

This project, carried out with the means of empowering photography, has provided the photographers with a channel for finding answers to questions related to one’s own father or to oneself. The method makes photography an equal, intimate and meaningful event in which both the photographer and the main character of the story in the photo share their experiences. There is a strong interactive relationship between the photographer and the object. One can look for similarity, acceptance or memories in the photos. They are not just documents but a key to a deeper awareness of oneself, of being a child, of one’s father or of fatherhood.

This exhibition is a collection of several people’s experiences as photos, and it functions as a mirror to the viewers, reflecting their own experiences of fatherhood and childhood. There are very diverse sets of photos covering the whole lifespan of a person from childhood to grandparenthood. You get an opportunity to look at a father through a child’s eyes but also a better understanding of what it is like to be a father. The pictures convey the photographer’s personal experience of fatherhood although the objects may vary from family members to the main characters of the stories.

Photographers: Gunnar Bergström, Jan Eklund, Satu Haapala, Eddie Iles, Tero Laako, Robert Perander, Marja Pokela, Jukka Pääkkönen, Esa Rauhala, Seija Salminen, Riitta Säkö Father’s Traces work group Kirsi Hasu, Tarja Kunttunen, Marjut Kauppinen, Ann-Catrin Rosenberg

Text copyright by Jugend-sali and the Father project

The story behind my own choice of photographs for the exhibition you can find here.