Stockholm Cyanotypes

Today I did some cyanotypes of my images from Stockholm. I like old school printing, I’m sure everything was better in the 1800′s. Except maybe hygiene and women’s rights.

An Image Says More Than a Thousand Words, But a Few Words from You Mean More Than Anything

This complicated title belongs to the work I did as my final work this year, for the Independent Critical Practice-unit. We could basically do anything, so I chose to do this. In this series I’m investigating the close relationship I have with my friends and family, even though the physical distance between us is great. Instead of using modern technology to keep in touch with people while I’m far away from them, I prefer writing letters. There is something so personal and precious about a handwritten letter. These images are a visual response to the emotions and memories the letters I have received while studying abroad have triggered, layered with images of the actual letter.

The images are solvent transfers on art paper, because I wanted to make my prints on something similar to notepaper. So thank you for writing to me, I really appreciate it.

To see what the rest of my year did as their final work this year, take a look at our blog.

Objects of Survival

Last Wednesday was the opening night for our exhibition Other Faces. The opening night went very well and we got really good response from people. Thank you everyone for coming!

And for those who could not come, here are some really crappy photographs of my exibited series Untitled (Objects of Survival #1-5). Unfortunately I don’t have any images of the installation of letters I had next to my work. You find my artist statement underneath the images.

These images don’t really give credit to my work. You can’t see the hand made texture of my images over the web, which really is a shame beacause it’s such a big part of my work. There’s a better picture of one of the images on the Deaf Cat web page (click here to view it). I’ll try to get hold of some installation shots later and pictures from the opening night as well. 

 

Artist Statement

Ida Taavitsainen’s (b. 1987 in Helsinki, Finland) work is concerned with memory, identity and family. Being the middle child and growing up between two cultures she has always struggled to find her place.

In this series she has photographed objects that she took with her when moving to England. The photographed objects relate to her personal history, as many of them are gifts from people she is close to, and therefore they are full of memories and help her feel safe and at home in her new country. 

The images of the objects are juxtaposed with photographs of letters she has received from friends and family during her stay in England. Writing letters is Taavitsainen’s way of keeping in touch with those who matter most.

The photographed objects might not seem valuable to the viewer, but to Taavitsainen they are priceless. Some of the objects are in daily use while others only have sentimental value. She has deliberately photographed the objects from above, lying on fabric, like objects in a museum vitrine.

Taavitsainen’s images have a romantic nostalgia and longing for times passed. The images are salt and albumen prints, an old technique that dates back to the beginning of the history of photography. Taavitsainen’s choice to use this technique emphasizes her longing for the past.

Salt and Albumen Print

This is a test shot and test print (and a rather bad scan) of my exhibition work (yes, we are having an exhibition in Rochester on December 2nd and 3rd, if I haven’t mentioned it yet) that I did during a salt and albumen print workshop on Monday. I’m really excited about alternative printing methods and salt and albumen is great, because you don’t need a darkroom! 

My initial plan was to do some self-portraits for the exhibition but realized I can’t do them here, because I have absolutely no relationship to this place (well, except the fact that I study here). Instead I turned the concept over and now I’m taking pictures of objects that make me feel at home in this strange place called England. I’d really like to do salt and albumen prints for the exhibition, but so far I haven’t shot anything else than my sewing kit. 

I’ll write more about the exhibition later.

Dungeness

We hade a lith print workshop on monday, and I absolutely loved it. You just can’t achieve the same texture with digital. These images are from a place called Dungeness that our tutor took us to a few weeks ago.  It was one of the most fascinating and eerie places I’ve visited. The artist and film director Derek Jarman used to live there. I loved his last movie (if you can call a blue screen a movie), Blue.

The prints don’t look as good on screen as on paper, but here they are anyway. I’ll probably post more images of Dungeness later.