In the exhibition by Jere J. Aalto and Heikki Kaski at Hippolyte Korjaamo, a thematic umbrella is formed by the presentation of life itself, the fictional overlap of night and day, and another, as of yet undefined, context. At its core is the fiction arising from the inadequacy of photography that appears as a metaphor for the prevailing world. In Aalto’s and Kaski’s work, the medium of photography, its relationship to individual and communal understanding of existence, and the authorship of photographic art are shown from two colluding starting points. 

On the one hand, Jere J. Aalto moves towards the inadequacy of the photographic narrative. He explores photography’s reciprocity between society and individualization, in order to bind its meanings on the levels of the fictional and the microcosm. On the other hand, Heikki Kaski focuses on the complexity of photographic representation, extending its traditional forms – still life, pastoral image and portraiture – beyond and across their traditional functions. At the core of his work are portraits, where the representation of the models’ identities is impossible. In both of these viewpoints, photography, and its basic quality, is combined with something erroneous, undefined, affected by the diversity of prevailing cultural codes.

The title of the exhibition (eds.) refers to the coordinated outcome of the two authors in a way that gives way to a single artist’s intention and retreats to a force in the background. When edited, the content is brought into a new context that includes its constituents’ – the editors’ – key artistic modes, aspirations, and the desire towards agreement. Collaboration, as a process, is an experimental context in which risks, misunderstandings, and coincidences can eventually produce something unique. In the title eds., or editors, also refers to the subtle handling of content; to bring it into something, into cooperation. A key limit in the works is the ways in which information is produced in accordance to the boundaries of documentary photography, still expanding on those conventions.

The discursive collaboration between Jere J. Aalto and Heikki Kaski as ‘editors’ of each other’s artistic processes began in 2015 during their MFA studies in photography in the Academy of Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden. The collaboration has evolved in its form to this day – focusing in particular on discussions of how a photographer perceives their paradoxical position and the dynamics of social influence in an increasingly complex, globalizing, visual world. In his work, Jere J. Aalto combines knowledge produced through fiction, semiotics, photography and manipulation, with the notion of finitude in hybrid forms of pictoriality. Aalto graduated in 2017 from the Academy of Valand and his works have been in private and group exhibitions in Finland and other Nordic countries since 2010. Heikki Kaski’s work focuses on photography, video, installation, and performance art. He has studied photography at the Lahti Institute of Design and the Academy of Valand. His works have been presented in various places and are in several collections.

Jere J. Aalto & Heikki Kaski
(eds.)

17 September – 6 November 2021
Hippolyte Korjaamo

The exhibition is open in accordance to Korjaamo’s opening times.
Tue-Thu 11:00-21:00, Fri 11:00-21:30, Sat 14:00-21:30 (Sun & Mon closed)

image: Jere J. Aalto, 0.00.9.6.if, 2020