Laboratory

LEFT NEXT

07/12/12 — 27/01/13

The visionary photographer duo Peter Farago and Ingela Klemetz Farago, has as part of an exclusive collaboration with CHANEL in 2010 and 2011, created full fashion stories featuring 45 of the most sought-after supermodels from the Nordic and Baltic countries. The project has resulted in a lavish coffee table book and a touring photography exhibition, both entitled NORTHERN WOMEN IN CHANEL.

Freja Beha Erichsen, Helena Christensen, Iselin Steiro, Louise Pedersen, Edita Vilkeviciute, Sigrid Ågren, Frida Gustavsson, Suvi Koponen, Kirsi Pyrhonen, Carmen Kass, Siri Tollerod, Caroline Winberg and Dorothea Barth Jörgensen are just a few of the women involved. The models have been carefully chosen to represent an aestethic flair for fashion but also a desire to convey a sense of humanity. Profits from sales of the book are donated to the organisation Save The Children.

The images of these remarkable women allow us to take an exclusive and intimate insight into the significant past and present Haute Couture and Prêt-à-Porter collections created by Karl Lagerfeld for CHANEL as well as the brand’s Fine Jewelry and Beauty creations. Thanks to Faragos’ sense of the pictorial, these photographs not only celebrate the fascinating designs they record, but also produce sensational reinventions, demonstrating how fashion, photography and art can come together.

After the breathtaking outdoor setting of World’s End in Norway, 87 works of art will now invade an ultracontemporary art space. With the exhibition in Helsinki, Northern Women in CHANEL completes its tour of the Nordic countries.

Laboratory is a temporary photography gallery located in the creative heart of Helsinki. The gallery offers visitors exhibitions, experiences and events during the Helsinki World Design Capital year 2012. Northern Women in CHANEL will be the final exhibition of a series of high-quality photography exhibitions by both Finnish and international artists.

LEFT NEXT

12/10/12 – 25/11/12

Rami Hanafi’s exhibition at Laboratory Gallery tells a different story of snowboarding

For years now, award-winning photographer Rami Hanafi has been travelling the world from one mountain to another, documenting the lives of snowboarders as they live their dream 24/7. The works in the upcoming exhibition, shot on world snowboard tours in places like Alaska, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and California, feature internationally renowned riders Antti Autti, Scotty Lago, Mike Basich and Miikka Hast, among others.

Hanafi’s photographs take viewers from one opposite to another: from the silence of the mountains to karaoke bars, from the wild joy of winning to the disappointment of defeat. For Hanafi himself, the photographs are like personal notes or documents of times spent on the road.

“The snowboarders allowed me to see sides of themselves that only few people get to see,” says Hanafi. “I got to photograph them as they are. This is a selection of shots that say something about this culture and the people – and of shots where I felt very much part of it all. And there’s snowboarding in there too, of course.”

Professional snowboarders are driven by a passion that never dies. The thrill they felt as a child when experiencing new things and seeing new places is still there, many years and kilometres later. Most of the riders in the photographs are now international stars on the snowboard scene, while others have found in riding the freedom to hold on to the carefree days of their youth. The one thing they all have in common is the special sense of joy they only feel when out on the snow.

Hanafi himself began snowboarding in the early 1990s, a few years before taking up photography. He first started to attract international attention as a snowboard photographer about a decade later when working together with Antti Autti.

“Another Story” is the third solo exhibition of Rami Hanafi’s snowboarding photography, the two previous ones having been held at the Kotka Photographic Centre in 2009 and the VB Photographic Centre in 2012. Hanafi is currently working on a book based on these exhibitions.

LEFT NEXT

16/08/12 – 30/09/12

“Helsinki Street – More towards nothing” is an exhibition showcasing some of the best photographs published on the Helsinki Street blog as well as works that have never been seen before. All the photographers involved in the collective share one thing in common: a fascination and love for Helsinki. Why go look for the exotic in other parts of the world when the exotic is right here. Helsinki Street wants to show us that, for a photographer, the most vivid experiences may well come from aimlessly wandering the streets of one’s own home city.

“Finnish street photography lives in the past tense. Professional photographers have turned their gaze away from the streets. In the process, we are losing sight of something – there’s a part of our day-to-day life that’s disappearing. Street photography is about walking, and mostly towards nothing. Helsinki Street’s mission is to encourage people to focus less on walking towards something and instead spend more time walking towards nothing.”

The people behind the project include some of the most interesting names in Finnish photojournalism and documentary photography, such as Sami Kero, photographer at Helsingin Sanomat and three time winner of “Picture of the Year” awarded by the Finnish Press Photographers Association, Touko Hujanen, winner of “Press Photographer of the Year 2011”, Miikka Pirinen, winner of “News Picture of the Year 2011”, Vesa Laitinen, winner of “Picture of the Year 2010”, Juuso Westerlund, winner of “Magazine Photographer of the Year 2011” awarded by the Finnish Periodical Publishers’ Association, and Aapo Huhta, one of the co-founders of the photography site Chicago and winner of “Young Press Photographer of the Year 2009”. The collective also includes such experienced members as Merja Salo, Professor at Aalto University, photographic artist Stefan Bremer, and the exhibition’s curator, Markus Jokela, who is one of the most award-winning and established press photographers in Finland.

The exhibition will be accompanied by discussions, lectures, concerts and other events exploring the worlds of street and documentary photography from different perspectives.

The Helsinki Street blog is the first Finnish platform created and run by professional photographers and dedicated solely to street photography. The Helsinki Street collective, made up of award-winning Finnish photojournalists, launched the photography blog in May 2012. The site attracted widespread attention from the start, with over 12,000 visitors in the first month alone.

Check out Helsinki Street at facebook as well: https://www.facebook.com/HelsinkiStreet

LEFT NEXT

25/05/12 – 12/08/12

The upcoming exhibition Flowers (from 25 May to 22 July 2012) by Åland-based photographer Kenneth Bamberg presents a collection of portraits of young Shan tribe boys, undergoing a male rite of passage in northern Thailand. The portraits display unique male aesthetics, shedding a bright light on the social constructs of gendered identities.
“The portraits of Shan boys are a natural progression in my exploration of the cultural constructs of masculinity. I study the ways in which cultural beliefs are embodied in individual people. The experience of meeting the Shan boys stirred up memories of my own Confirmation; standing with roses in my hands, wearing a white robe. One step closer to adulthood,” Bamberg says.

Male rites of passage are common in cultures all over the world. Although different in shape and form, a common denominator is often that these rites comprise either pain, danger or the threat of isolation. Among the Shan people of Burma and northern Thailand, this could, however, not be further from the truth.
When boys of the Shan tribe undergo the ritual “Poi Sang Long”, the focus lies on what in the Western world would be described as “feminine values”. They are dressed up in bright colours and adorned with make-up. The aim is to mimic the young Prince Siddhartha before he became Lord Buddha. Even though the purpose of the ritual is to show that the boys are ready to become mature and responsible men, it is loaded with aesthetic values and free from any physical trials. This is what sets it apart from other typical male rituals – and Bamberg’s portraits question the cultural and societal constructs of gendered norms.
The exhibition is part of the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 programme.

Photographer Kenneth Bamberg (born 1981) studied at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, where he graduated Master of Arts. Explorations into the concept of maleness and what it means to be male are recurrent themes in Kenneth Bamberg’s photography. His earlier works on the topic of masculinity have included photographs of Russian, Finnish and Ukrainian sauna bathers, Japanese fishermen, Turkish wrestlers and the symbolic value of cocks (roosters). Bamberg´s works have been on display in a number of solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, including ones at the Freies Museum in Berlin and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Zurich. Bamberg’s photographic works can also be found in public and private collections in Finland and the Åland Islands.

LEFT NEXT

13/04/12 – 20/05/12

The upcoming exhibition of Perttu Saksa, one of Finland’s most noted young photographers, takes us into questions related to nonhuman, on thinking ourselves through animal Other and to question our histories with the animal.

The exhibition challenges us to examine the way we perceive ourselves – through fragile images of taxidermic primates, captured into European museum archives from colonial Africa and Latin America.

In Saksa’s images, every scar is visible and all the glass eyes have faded, but still Saksa forces us to relate ourselves with his chosen motifs. By this simple gesture, he questions how our histories are written and represented through photography and natural science.

The exhibition is accompanied by Perttu Saksa’s debut book, Echo with texts by Ron Broglio, and discussion between Jan Kaila and Perttu Saksa. The book is published by Musta Taide.

Perttu Saksa (b. 1977) is a photographer and visual artist. He has graduated from fine arts (MFA) from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and from photography (BA) from the Lahti University of Applied Science. Perttu’s photography and video works have been exhibited in various galleries and museums around Europe, including Stadt Galleri Kiel, Felleshus Berlin and Finnish Museum of Photography and Helsinki City Art Museum. His works can also be found in various public collections.

Echo’s partners are marketing agency SEK & GREY and photography agency Viewmasters.

LEFT NEXT

10/02/12 – 08/04/12

Renowned photographer Martin Parr takes a look at Finnishness.

Laboratory’s opening exhibition is British photographer Martin Parr’s eye-opening Think of Finland. Parr’s exhibition presents a never-before-seen body of work from the internationally renowned photographer and member of the Magnum Photos agency. In August 2011 Parr travelled between Helsinki in the south and Oulu in the north, capturing images of Finns and the Finnish way of life. The photographs depict Finns without sentimentality but with warmth and tenderness.

“I have long been fascinated by Finland, since I was Professor of Photography at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in the early 90s, so how good to have this chance to return with my camera and create a new body of work,” Parr says. “The Finns are a delightfully quirky people, so I wanted to show this and also the tension between tradition and modernity.”

A making of film on Martin Parr’s journey across Finland will be screened at the gallery during the exhibition.

Martin Parr (b. 1952) is a British photographer known for his intimate photographs tinged with satirical humour, showing the society we live in. Parr has photographed, among other things, British suburban life, the superrich – and last year, Finns and Finnishness. Parr is a member of the renowned Magnum Photos agency. He has published almost 50 books of photography and his work has been shown in 80 exhibitions around the world.

A making of film on Martin Parr’s journey across Finland is screened at the gallery during the exhibition. Video was shot with Nokia N8 and directed by Rami Hanafi. Watch the film here.

Exhibiton brought to Laboratory by Nokia.

www.martinparr.com