Artist
Essi Maaria Orpana
Essi Maaria Orpana is a visual artist currently based in Helsinki, Finland. At the moment Orpana works with photography and video but has recently started adopting also more installation-driven approach to her artistic work. Her themes deal with body and presence interrelated to space, identity and passing of time. Characteristic to Orpana's work is to perform for or with a camera. Her approach to artistic work is personal, often with an uncanny twist.
Orpana holds a BA from visual arts from Turku University of Applied Science Art Academy and is currently finishing her MA studies in photography at Aalto University, School of Arts. Orpana has also studied fine arts at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain.
Lately her works have been exhibited in a solo show in Turku Kunstahalle, Turku, Finland (2020), curated group show in Latvian Museum of photography, Riga, Latvia (2019) and in Gallery Lapinlahti in Helsinki, Finland (2018), solo exhibition in Ostrabothnian Photography Centre, Lapua, Finland (2017) and her photographs have been published in a book called A book of lies : väritettyjä totuuksia, (valokuvauksen opiskelijat ry, Aalto Books & Musta taide. Helsinki, 2013).
Such is the Silence
There was a room in our grandparents’ house that was called the cold attic. There, dust danced in a dim daylight and the walls and floors were filled with objects accumulated over time. We used to explore this place with my little sister as the wonderworld of the past. We dug out old exotic treasures and put on grandma’s old dresses to play.
Today, in these abandoned houses I enter, memories from the past emanate through peeling layers of walls, bedraggled furniture, the dust on the floor, and the smell. I walk through rooms and I observe. The windows upstairs creek as the wind blows through their frames. A ray of light crosses one of the rooms. The prowling layers of time make my wind restless. Downstairs everything remains dark.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Gabriel García Márquez describes a town called Macondo. The long time span and surreal happenings in the book leave the reader wondering if Macondo was really ever real. The body of work Such is the Silence offers reflections on existence, memory and the passing of time. Without any prior connection to these houses, there is a contradiction when I enter the space. I want to illuminate these abandoned spaces with life. Such is the Silence depicts a possible fictive world where, as an imagined character I am able to place myself inside the memory of these houses and imagine the changing generations and life as in Márquez’s book. Through my presence, these rooms become alive again.
We selected five talents based on applications from seven of the Nordic countries and autonomies:
Io Sivertsen (b. 1994, Norway) graduated from The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and is attending the Masters programme at the Norwegian Film Academy in Oslo. In her work, she explores the boundary between truth and fiction. Using reality as a starting point, her image-making anchors the subject matter in her own personal perspective.
Depicted themes include climate change, internet culture and sexuality. Nanna Navntoft (b. 1988, based in Denmark) graduated in 2020 from the Danish School of Media and Journalism. As part of her education, she worked at the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Politiken before continuing her studies at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Her work deals with social topics and mental health, which she mainly explores through intimate portraiture.
Essi Maaria Orpana (b. 1988, based in Finland) studied a BA in Visual Arts from Turku University of Applied Science Art Academy as well as Fine Arts at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain. In 2021, she will graduate with an MA in Photography at Aalto University, School of Arts. Characteristic to her practice is to perform for, or with, the camera. In this way her artistic approach is personal, flavored with an uncanny twist.
Hrafn Jónsson (Krummi) (b. 1990, based in Iceland) graduated from Ljósmyndaskólinn – The School of Photography, Reykjavik in 2021. Krummi was a teenager when he became disabled. Through his relationship with the photographic medium, he has come to see that whether he is able, less able, more able or disable, he is always, in some way, able. By adhering to the seemingly simple and straightforward medium most of us engage with every day, Krummi is able to push himself forward and engage with his environment.
Lars Dyrendom (b. 1981, based in Sweden) graduated in 2020 from The MFA programme in Photography, Valand Academy University of Gothenburg. His artistic practice revolves around photographic archives and collections. A returning theme in his works is how humans as groups behave and act in relation to their surroundings and environment.
Each of the talents’ works were showcased in tailormade pavilions during CPF in June 2021, designed and built by Bachelor students from the Institute of Architecture and Design, Royal Danish Academy, in dialogue with the five talents. A fruitful and challenging collaboration which sought to merge photography and architecture and play with the perspective.
Copenhagen Photo Festival was launched in 2010 and has become the largest Nordic festival of its kind with exhibitions spread all over galleries, museums and art institutions in Copenhagen and southern Sweden.