Johanna Karjalainen :
Nothing but Disappointing
Johanna Karjalainen (Rovaniemi, Finland, 1987) is a sociologist and a Masters student in Photography at Aalto University, Helsinki. She experiments with the boundaries of nature photography by often intervening physically within the image and natural surroundings. She uses different printmaking techniques to emphasize the materiality of a photograph, and her work is often inspired by the process of reduction. Johanna has exhibited her work across Finland and Europe.
Nothing but Disappointing discusses the relationship between human and non-human animals, and questions the colonialist, exploitative approach to nature and animals and the ways they have been seen and photographed. Nothing but Disappointing consists of ‘wildlife’ photographs photographed with a trail camera in northern Finland as well as archival super 8 film material from family archives, filmed during summer holidays in the 1980s by my father. Thus, the work may also be a reflection on the process of our social conditioning when it comes to human and non-human relationships through the example of zoos.
As John Berger puts it in About Looking:
‘The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. They scan mechanically. They have been immunized to encounter, because nothing can anymore occupy a central place in their attention. Therein lies the ultimate consequence of their marginalization…This historic loss, to which zoos are a monument, is now irredeemable for the culture of capitalism.’
Johanna Karjalainen (Rovaniemi, Finland, 1987) is a sociologist and a Masters student in Photography at Aalto University, Helsinki. She experiments with the boundaries of nature photography by often intervening physically within the image and natural surroundings. She uses different printmaking techniques to emphasize the materiality of a photograph, and her work is often inspired by the process of reduction. Johanna has exhibited her work across Finland and Europe.
Nothing but Disappointing discusses the relationship between human and non-human animals, and questions the colonialist, exploitative approach to nature and animals and the ways they have been seen and photographed. Nothing but Disappointing consists of ‘wildlife’ photographs photographed with a trail camera in northern Finland as well as archival super 8 film material from family archives, filmed during summer holidays in the 1980s by my father. Thus, the work may also be a reflection on the process of our social conditioning when it comes to human and non-human relationships through the example of zoos.
As John Berger puts it in About Looking:
‘The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. They scan mechanically. They have been immunized to encounter, because nothing can anymore occupy a central place in their attention. Therein lies the ultimate consequence of their marginalization…This historic loss, to which zoos are a monument, is now irredeemable for the culture of capitalism.’
As John Berger puts it in About Looking:
‘The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. They scan mechanically. They have been immunized to encounter, because nothing can anymore occupy a central place in their attention. Therein lies the ultimate consequence of their marginalization…This historic loss, to which zoos are a monument, is now irredeemable for the culture of capitalism.’