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FATHER & SON

Ongoing series since 2012

How does a young child see the world? What is the child’s worldview like?

Photographer Sami Parkkinen (b. 1974) took interest in how his child experiences the sur- rounding world and ended up exploring it though play. Over the years, observing the child’s world developed into a collaborative art project between father and son.

The Father & Son series – started by Parkkinen in 2012 – investigates children’s development of consciousness and the father and son relationship.

Parkkinen photographs shared experiences and life from his child’s viewpoint. Bit by bit, the young mind grasps the world and grows into the person he holds the potential to be. And sharing the child’s experiences creates a portal to one’s own lost childhood memories.

“Children are real Zen-masters and mindfulness gurus. Freedom and creativity, their world is a world of possibilities. I seek as an artist to bring forward a playful and alternative perspective of the world, where the human understands the interdependence between himself and the rest of nature.”

Parkkinen’s photographs and sculptural works that utilize photography explore human growth, the development of perception, our relationship to nature, and people’s ability to change their ways.

Sami Parkkinen (b. 1974) is a Finnish photographer. He employs photography and sculpture to investigate the human consciousness and the need to rebuild society. Since 2009, he has exhibited at a number of museums and galleries, including The National Museum of Finland (2021), Finnish Museum of Photography (2010), The National Portrait Gallery, London (2015), and Circulation(s) – Festival de la Jeune Photographie Européenne, Paris (2016). His works are also held by notable public and private collections.

The touring exhibition is accompanied by the newly published Father & Son book. Work on the series will actively continue for years to come.

Exhibition / Father & Son

Touring exhibition contains 50 framed works (box frame), museum glass) + Installations and video works. The works travel in high quality plywood crates, with safety padding insideand moisture barrier.

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LIMBO

At our summer house, hidden from reality, in this place that is so cosy and so familiar to us, my mother turns to me. “We are happy, aren’t we?” she asks. “Yes, we are,” comes my response, every time. But am I telling the truth? Are we really happy?

Limbo series is an exploration of the way humans perceive happiness. To be in limbo is to find yourself in a liminal state, in a place in-between. We’re in limbo when we’re faced with a choice, grappling with indecision, anxious about our future.

We’re surrounded by bad news. It’s a sign of the times that we’ve learned to find swift so lutions to our problems. Or, to be more accurate, we’ve gured out how and where to hide from them. Pointlessly buying more and more things and endlessly watching the Netflix series might give temporary relief from ourselves, but the a ertaste is hollow.

We know that we need to take action if we are to break away from this self-perpetuating cycle of disaster we have brought on ourselves. The to-do list is as long as it is urgent. We must: take better care of our planet, eradicate war, eliminate hunger, reduce our carbon footprint and, above all, love one another more and better.

With a dash of humour and melancholy, Sami Parkkinen’s photographs offer small but insightful clues to life’s big questions. The desire to work for the common good should be an in-built human characteristic, but what will it take for all of us to start our own personal revolution? How do we extricate ourselves from the limbo?

At least he tried.

Rasmus Vasli
Director and Co-founder of Fotogalleri Vasli Souza

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