Wild rosemary
Amanita
Lingonberry
Goldenrod
Sphagnum
Meadowsweet
Milfoil
Fool’s gold
Ash
Birch bark
Wild strawberry
…
This place is many is a series of works shot on film by Venla Kaasinen that explore spatial relationships and the personification of places, aiming to bring non-human actors to the fore. There are three people. Each of them has chosen a place that means something to them. The garden at home, a place near their childhood home, a remote swamp pond, a summer house on an island, a clear-cut forest starting from their own backyard. Before shooting, Kaasinen tries to understand what these places mean to them. Why did each of them choose that particular location? What emotions does it evoke? What memories do they associate with it? How do they spend their time there?
During the shooting, the subjects have collected plants and other elements that they consider to be an essential part of the place. Before processing, the film is soaked in a liquid made from these materials and water collected from the site, which leaves its mark on the images. In the film images, the touch of light reflected from the environment into the camera makes the place very palpable. Bathing the film in a liquid made from ingredients collected from the site is another attempt to bring the place even more powerfully into the image. The touch of the location affects the final appearance of the images. The liquid may decide to destroy the images altogether, or it may cause only minor colour variations. Sometimes it drills black holes here and there in the surface of the film emulsion. Despite the end result, Kaasinen prefers to let the materials take over.
In the images we can see pieces of the relationships people have with places and how they are personified in our minds. But Kaasinen also feels that when she photographs people in places that are meaningful to them, she is not so much photographing the people themselves as she is photographing the places and their inhabitants through human intervention, through the people. In the end, the human being is only a performer of the place and its non-human actors. Instead of the people, the gaze is directed at them.
This place is many is Venla Kaasinen’s artistic thesis from Turku Arts Academy (Turku University of Applied Sciences). The series was also exhibited at the Ostrobothnia Photo Centre in Lapua in January 2025.
The exhibition is supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Venla Kaasinen
This place is many
Photo North, Foyer gallery
5.4.-1.6.2025
