S.H. Suominen

Just like the suburbs of Helsinki have been born for the ones who left the Finnish countryside in hopes for work, I am also originally deep from the core of Southwest Finland’s countryside. From my childhood I have been fascinated by myths and tales. I have never been practical-minded or rational. Instead of being awake, I have existed in a form of dream.  I have looked for the secret side of reality and been under the spell of its shadows.  

As a self-taught folklorist, I have hunted for real-life mystical beings during my adulthood as well. However, the myths of the modern age do not spring from the same places as the myths of Ancient Greece or the gods of Finnish pagans. For me, the urban suburb represents what the traditional village community used to be for. Its funny characters and happenings create stories, which change the urban to a legend. Likewise, historical sites there are often left untouched. They are neither renovated nor maintained, like they would be in the inner city. Time can do its job and leave its mark without disturbance.  

My photographs from the pages of this calendar come from premises such as mentioned above. The city – with its urban myths – shows itself seen from the side of the shadows. Its weird characters are represented by the entity seen in the images. It is like a suburb in a physical body. Messy and hazy. Built from the waste of the wreckage. A character that is sympathetic in a sorrowful sense, fallen into the midst of the existing reality from what could be another planet. Being an outsider as well as coming from a different era is also represented in the choice of the milieu; the fortifications built by the Russians during the first world war, which can be found from around Helsinki. (In this case, from Malmi) 

S.H. Suomalainen is a second-year photography student, born in 1993, who has lived all around Finland and ended up here by accident. The photographs may or may not create reactions.