Photographer Sanni Saarinen: “Sometimes, something small allows you to ask big questions”

Text Timo Huttunen
Photos Sanni Saarinen and Meeli Küttim / Tallinna Fotomuuseum

The photo exhibition “Kohti: Towards” at the Tallinn Photography Museum is the first international solo exhibition of Finnish photographer Sanni Saarinen. 

Sanni Saarinen is a documentary photographer, cultural anthropologist and author living in Espoo, Finland.

Saarinen participated in the “Foto Tallinn” event earlier this autumn in Estonia, and as a result, she was asked to hold an exhibition at the Tallinn Museum of Photography.

The photographer says that her artistic work can be roughly divided into two parts. Saarinen’s social photographs mainly focus on human rights, humanism and multiculturalism.

The “Kohti: Towards” exhibition focuses on Saarinen’s most intimate works. Autofictional images play an important role in humanity, but also in nature. Through her own life and that of her loved ones, Saarinen describes the universal themes of life. Among other things, her own daughter has been photographed.

“I don’t want to document the lives of those I photograph. With my pictures, I deal with topics that touch my own life and all of us, such as family, memories, the continuum of life, growth, the passage of time, and disappearance. Sometimes, something small allows you to ask big questions,” says Sanni Saarinen.

Saarinen explores how we become ourselves. She does not believe that major turning points or milestones in life are the most important. “We become ourselves in those little moments of everyday life where nothing seems to happen,” the photographer says.

On the other hand, Saarinen wants to avoid explaining her pictures. “I let the photos speak for themselves. I interpret life with my pictures. They are not documentaries. I hope that every viewer will find things that are related to his or her life,” Saarinen continues.

The “Kohti: Towards” exhibition will be on display at the Tallinn Museum of Photography until February 27, 2022.

 

 

 

To learn more about this and similar topics
Finnish Photographer Foto Tallinn Museum of Photography Sanni Saarinen Tallinn City Museum Tallinn Photo Museum