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The

Artist

Emma Sarpaniemi

Nominated in
2024
By
Copenhagen Photo Festival
Lives and Works in
Helsinki
Emma Sarpaniemi is an artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Sarpaniemi graduated with BA inPhotography from The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK) in 2019. In her practice,Sarpaniemi explores the concept of femininity through humorous and performative self-portraits. Self-portraiture is a playground for Sarpaniemi where her aim is to shake up conventional notions of femininity.Sarpaniemi’s work has been exhibited in Finland and internationally including LesRencontres d’Arles festival, European Month of Photography Luxembourg festival, The FinnishMuseum of Photography, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum, Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, amongothers. Her work is in the public collections of The Finnish Museum of Photography, The FinnishState Art Deposit Collection, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Turku Art Museum, Museum Folkwang, ,Wihuri Foundation Collection, Heino Art Foundation, Miettinen Collection, and private collectionsin Finland, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Projects
2024

Two ways to Carry a Cauliflower

Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower by Emma Sarpaniemi is a performative photography series exploring women’s self portraiture through play. To free the subject from the male gaze, the character depicted in the images is portrayed playfully and tenderly as a woman who behaves, looks, and performs on her terms and rules. While playfulness can often be perceived as naivety in the context of female artistry, Sarpaniemi turns it into a resource, possibilities for new ways of being. The starting point for self-portraits in the project is often an object or clothing found at a flea market, from which the artist begins to construct a photograph. Sarpaniemi selects the clothes, stages the scenes, photographs and designs the self-portraits herself. She is interested in using everyday objects in an unpredictable manner to create contradictions and alternative symbolic meanings within the photographs.
Emma Sarpaniemi
was nominated by
Copenhagen Photo Festival
in
2024
Show all projects
Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.

Barbara Marstrand (b. 1994) has been selected for her project Still Life of Teenagers which playfully portrays the lives of Danish youth. Approaching photography with a curiosity about different groups of people, Marstrand offers a unique insight into different life experiences, combining her artistic practice and keen eye with sociological methods.

Emma Sarpaniemi (b.1993), based in Helsinki, has been selected for her project Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower because of her refreshingly unique, satiric and at the same time intimate way of exploring identity. Through both performative and satirical self portraits, Sarpaniemi challenges traditional femininity and gender roles.

Frederik Danielsen (b. 1995) has been selected for his work revolving around the myths of the Danish island Als, where the artist himself grew up. Danielsen evokes the viewer's curiosity for these local places and their stories by applying a photographic approach that combines documentary photography and conceptual art, using both his own photographs as well as found material from local archives.

Jenni Toivonen (b. 1993) based in Helsinki, has been selected for her project Are We There - a performative journey to the old village Penedo where her grandparents were set to build an utopian community in the tropics. As it unfolds, the project becomes an investigation into migration, memory and history.

Mathias Eis (b. 1995) has been selected for his long-term project Are we nearly there yet?, which explores life at the 148 rest stops along the Danish highway. Although most Danish people have visited at least one of these stops, few attach any value to them, so Eis transforms these otherwise bland locations into places worth seeing.