HIPPOLYTE STUDIO
Yrjönkatu 8–10 (courtyard), 00120 Helsinki, Finland, +358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: Tue–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun 12–16

3.-26.1.2014
LAURA KONTTINEN
The day that sank to the bottom of the lake, and other memories

The day that sank to the bottom of the lake, and other memories is a collection of reimagined memories. With the passing of time they have merged with stories and begun to defy the laws of physics.

For me, photography is not just a medium, but also a crucial building material. I seek out visual forms for those of my memories that were never frozen in a photo album, but instead have continued to transform and evolve without anyone noticing. They are half-inklings of something that might have been very important—wrinkled scenes from a summer trip, skeletons of cities or horror-twinged stories of woodland beings who will one day return with a changeling in tow.

In my work I tear down, cut up and assemble temporary arrangements out of old and new photographs, animal picture cards, wire, and abandoned pieces of floral wallpaper. The reconstructed memoryscapes are eventually captured as two-dimensional photographs. This technique, a combination of collage and installation, attempts to bring out various layers, mergers, holes and meaningful imprecisions; such odd structures of recollection tend to be missing from photo albums.

– Laura Konttinen

Laura Konttinen (born 1987) works at the crossroads of photography, collage and installation. Konttinen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from Tampere University of Applied Sciences in 2010 and has since participated actively in group exhibitions, and held solo exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Recently her works have been displayed at a solo exhibition in Unknown Cargo, Helsinki (2013), the Young Artists 2011 exhibition,   the Polaroid exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography (2012) and at the Noorderlicht Photofestival 2011 in the Netherlands.

The exhibition has received funding from the National Council for Photographic Art and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.

Laura Konttinen, In the afternoon I listened to ancient echoes in the living room, 2012