Christian Langensköld’s exhibition Leavetaking at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte consists of seven photographic works: five diaviewers for large-format sheet film and two stereoscopes. The exhibition pieces are built by the artist using timber from fallen trees collected from a place connected to his youth, with each work featuring its own handcrafted structure.

At the core of the exhibition is a reflection on places and experiences where personal memory intersects with longer cultural and historical layers. The works draw from summers spent in Raasepori, as well as a journey to Sicily with Diana, a long-standing friend from the artist’s youth who had a deep personal connection to the island and was revisiting places from her earlier life. The photographs originate from this trip and from her home environment, forming a body of work shaped by encounters with landscapes, architecture, and everyday spaces that carry traces of change over time.

Christian Langenskiöld (b. 1978) is a Finnish artist working mainly with photography. His practice focuses on constructed photographic works and self-made viewing devices. In his work, he has often returned to the same paradox: as living creatures, we are driven to stay alive, but as human beings gifted with reason and imagination, we realise that life is an unstable and finite process. When approaching his working themes, he often collaborates with people involved in various fields such as medicine, art history, psychology, and archaeology. Langenskiöld holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (2019). His recent exhibitions include shows at Gallery Ars Libera, Kuopio; Forum Box, Helsinki; and Maker’s Gallery, Vaasa.

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The World Never Knew I Was Here

In my youth, in Raasepori, I worked as a caretaker on a neighbouring island during the summers, where an older woman and her daughter were my employers. I painted walls, chopped wood, and mowed lawns, and because their house required much maintenance, I worked for them during many summers. We became good friends, and a valuable outcome of our friendship was that their interest in art rubbed off on me. Flora, the mother, died at home in 2008, and Diana continues to live in the house by herself.

In the winter, the women lived in Italy and worked in art restoration. Upon arriving in Sicily in the early 1970s, they fell in love with the island, where art was a part of everyday life, and stayed for many years. They visited the ruins of prehistoric and ancient temples in countryside forests and attended church services, where they admired the art and architecture. A few of the buildings were were originally pagan sanctuaries, and Greek temples were later built on their sites. Some temples were transformed into churches, then mosques, and then churches again. All these periods were visible in the shape and ornamentation of the buildings. In the cities, ruins from earlier eras remained part of the urban landscape, and the women were intrigued by the presence of prehistoric and ancient peoples, and the resonance of a seemingly living current of time. Many old public artworks were in poor condition when the women arrived on the island, and they began working with local art museums to restore a few of them.

Diana had long hoped to make a final trip to Sicily to see their former projects and visit places dear to her. The last time she travelled to the island was in the early 2000s. I suggested I accompany her on the trip, and she was excited by the idea. We set off for Sicily in April 2023. Life on the island had changed a lot over the last few decades. Diana was pleased that there was much less poverty, but the place she had fallen in love with had disappeared as economic development progressed. People no longer lived amidst art. There was little left of the ancient market in the centre of Palermo, where they had restored a mosaic. The artwork had been cut from its place and put in a museum. On a white wall in cold light, removed from the vibrant environment of the market, the mosaic felt lifeless. But it was just as well, as the market was disappearing due to a new shopping centre in the same area. The forest temples had been turned into tourist attractions, where the entrances went through the gift shops. Diana came to Sicily to say goodbye to a place she loved dearly, but it had gone before her.

– Christian Langenskiöld

Christian Langenskiöld
Leavetaking
7 August –6 September 2026
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte

image: Christian Langenskiöld, Diana’s Storage Room, 2025