Minna Kangasmaa | Tuomo Kangasmaa
ID:I galleri, Stockholm, Schweden
2.8.–18.8.2024
The story of the works in the exhibition begins in 2010, when we had parallel solo exhibitions at the Oulu Art Museum. At that time, we received three large rolls of unused old analog photo paper from the art museum, which the museum no longer had a use for in the digital era. The rolls we received contained a total of 60 meters of unexposed photo paper. On the side of one cardboard box of the rolls was written "last used 1998". We stored the photo paper rolls in our studio with the intention of using them for something someday. The rolls were forgotten for fourteen years in the stash of our studio, from which we have now dug them out like old memories.
Our exhibition features plants exposed outdoors in direct sunlight. All works are handmade silver gelatin photographs using photogram technique. The photographs are produced without a camera, in a straightforward process, where the quality of the photographic material, the amount of light and the fixing chemicals of the images produce an artistic impression that is only partly controllable.
Throughout human history, plants have been depicted in all known ways: two dimensional and three dimensional, realistic and stylized, black and white and colour, symbolic and for identification purposes, scientific and artistic. We have collected plants from partly planted cultivated areas and partly wild plants from wastelands. The plants we used have been in different stages of their life cycle; some were fresh flowers full of chlorophyll, while others were almost withered leaves that were almost rotting. For us, the plants represent the northern time, which means a short summer. At that time there is plenty of sunlight, but only for a short period of summer. Our work adapts to this. Summer is an intense and dense time to make these photograms. Plants also react to the amount and quality of light in different ways. Like photographic paper, plants contain a light sensitive pigment, leaf green, i.e. chlorophyll. The photosynthesis of plants is the dominant medium of the entire spectrum of life and the plants' creative interpretation of the sun. Only plants know how to turn light into food.
The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.