Sales-exhibition of Finnish photobooks
NELLI PALOMÄKI. Breathing the Same Air. 2013
This year’s Estonian Photographic Art Fair at the Telliskivi Loomelinnak holds a sales-exhibition of Finnish photobooks. Finnish photographic art is diverse and internationally recognized, it’s aesthetics and quality have influenced Estonian photographic art for decades. This exhibition gives an insight to the different approaches and directions in the Finnish contemporary photographic art through the medium of books. It also focuses on the concept of the photobook as a separate genre. The exhibition displays the works of about 30 Finnish artists who appreciate the photobook as a form of artistic expression.
This selection of photobooks allows us to get a glimpse of the visual richness of the Finnish lens-based art, but also shows the different possibilities of creating photographic publications. Photobooks are a means of capturing and archiving works, but they are also a means of creating new narratives. The design of the book has become as important as its content and the photobook has become an autonomous “touchable artwork”, something that you can have a look at and bring home with you, if interested. Photobooks are not simply books of images, the are a relevant part of photography as an art practice. The book and the whole process of creating a book can be as meaningful as displaying the artworks at an exhibition.
The sales-exhibition at the Estonian Photographic Art Fair will be accompanied by discussions that complement the exhibition and explore the Finnish photographic art and photobook publishing scene. Lectures will be given by Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, a Finnish art historian and chief curator of the Finnish Museum of Photography, and Finnish photographer Ida Pimenoff. They will discuss the various aspects of the Nordic photographic art and the growing popularity of publishing photobooks.
The sales-exhibition of Finnish photographic art books is assembled in collaboration with the Finnish Union of Artist Photographers and it is a prelude to the exhibition of contemporary Finnish photography taking place in 2015 during the Tallinn Photomonth at Tallinna Kunstihoone.