Through her images, Janette Holmström searches the city for unmediated growth. Can the definition of nature include the plants who have been ordered and spatially authorised within a built environment? What of those who reclaim their territory, stealing cracks amidst the asphalt and concrete? Single trees appear like monuments to nature’s past, whereas other plants take on less prominence, merging willfully into abutting structures. The interaction between the organic and fabricated is intriguing, sometimes humorous, as well as melancholic.
Janette Holmström’s pieces observe people, the environment, and our relationship to nature. We create our identities in tandem with our surroundings, but to what degree does our connection to nature shape us? Encounters and experiences with flora and vegetation are essential to people, and it is interesting to see how this tacit affinity becomes visible when considering methodologies of civic planning or overlooked everyday interaction.
Holmström’s images examine the extent that nature can appear as an outsider within a human-constructed environment, yet they conversely question the possibility that humans can withdraw from the “natural world” or completely shape it. Should nature follow the same planned order as the built environment or is there room for “wildness”? Whether or not given allocated space, the biota of the urban find—and take—their rooted places.
Janette Holmström is a photographic artist based in Imatra, Finland. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Saimaa University of Applied Sciences in 2015. Janette Holmström’s works have been shown in several solo and group exhibitions, both in Finland and abroad, including the influential Mänttä Art Festival this coming summer. Additionally, she works with public art and is a founding member of Taidekeskus Krimi.
The exhibition has been kindly supported by the Arts Council of Southeast Finland and the City of Imatra.
Janette Holmström
Revised Nature
2–25 March 2018
Hippolyte Studio
Exhibition open: Tue–Fri 12:00–17:00, Sat–Sun 12:00–16:00
image: Janette Holmström