Storytelling in Contemporary Photography.

Contemporary photography.
Photography is a medium that can be used to reflect on how we live our daily lives. It is a medium that expresses how we experience and understand the world. One example is the work of Hertta Kiiski, a Finnish photographer, video maker and installation artist. The artist uses live performances, textiles, installations and nature to enrich her practice of storytelling and photographic work.

Relationships with nature and the poetry of being

While Hertta Kiiski weaves fabulous realities, the inspiration for these stories stays close to home, for in many of her works familiar fellow actors like her pets and her daughters are the actors. Her practice depicts an alternative past or future and blends the life forms of the individual with those of the other. While the various forms of life in the world mix in harmony with each other. The works are built in a framework of affection – depicting the interrelationships between humans, non-humans and space. The artist creates site-sensitive installations that offer an area to breathe and listen. For example, in her work Birds of Paradise (2018) in which she creates a space filled with red grow lights, palm trees and pink gym balls. For Kiiski, this work is about “entering the smell of the space and settling down on the gym balls”. The interaction between the space and the physical experience of a work of art is central to her practice.

Bio

Hertta Kiiski (1973) works and lives in Turku, Finland. She earned an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts (2015) and a BA in Photography from the Turku Arts Academy (2012). Her work is presented in galleries and museums internationally and in Finland. Her solo exhibitions “Primeval Soup” took place at the Turku Art Museum in Finland in 2021 and “Milky Way” was shown at the PhotoIreland Festival in 2021. In 2021 her retrospective solo exhibition called Violet Sea was shown at the Finnish Museum of Photography 2019. Hertta KIiski’s second book “I was an apple and I got peeled – but it was a good thing” was published by Kehrer Verlag (DE) in 2016.

The artist’s work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. the Turku Art Association and the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, amongst others.

Website: Hertta Kiiski