Kati Leinonen: Seaweed Experiments
In Arttila:
Seaweed Experiments are cameraless and lightless studies drawn on color film, created when seaweed and a light-sensitive negative are in physical contact with each other. In Leinonen's experimental images, seaweed participates in the process of making images through their material properties. The organic compounds they contain, together with seawater, cause the silver halides in the film to react as they react to light, transforming them into silver metal when developed.
Leinonen's work began with a desire to encounter a seemingly ordinary landscape differently. In photography, the power of the landscape is easily tamed by cultural interpretations and aesthetics, which Leinonen set out to dismantle. By opening up space for the landscape's own materiality and agency, Leinonen explores in his works what kind of traces and layers the landscape can leave on both the image and the experiencer. The works make visible not only the agency that escapes the control of the landscape, but also the materiality of the photograph. The experience of the landscape also changes when it is not viewed as a controlled panorama but up close, through details and material traces.
Leinonen’s work is guided by neo-materialist theory-building, which emphasizes the agency of the material world and the intertwining of the human and the non-human. The materiality of water is one of the central themes of her work, and Leinonen draws on the posthumanist thinking of feminist cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis. According to Neimanis, our bodies of water are part of a broader hydrological cycle through which people, animals and ecosystems are intertwined. Through the swaying botanical forms of seaweed and the traces that their bodies of water leave on the light-sensitive material, Leinonen invites us to reflect on our connection to all living things.
Kati Leinonen (1974) is a photographic artist from Oulu who studied photography at the London College of Printing (BA) and audiovisual media culture at the University of Lapland (MA). In her documentary art projects, Leinonen has dealt with contemporary horse culture and the intertwining of memory and history, among other things. In her recent works, Leinonen approaches photography as an experimental medium, and the materiality of photography, the concept of landscape, and alternative ways of experiencing and describing landscape have emerged as central themes in her work. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Finland, including at the Oulu Art Museum and Galleria Hippolyte. Her photo book Äimärautio was nominated for the Photo Book of the Year 2019 award.
The exhibition is part of the Oulu2026 cultural program and cultural climate change.
Free entrance