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Helsinki Contemporary is glad to present at VOLTA Basel 2019 a solo show of the renowned Finnish photographic artist Sanna Kannisto, consisting of recent photographic and video works.

Kannisto’s trademark bird pictures are accompanied in the show by a video installation. Her unique artistic approach is typified by the method she uses to separate the animal from its original context by constructing the shooting situation in a field studio and thus setting up the subject of the shoot for inspection in an artificial environment. Observation is central to the process and to the final works: Kannisto actively studies the bird and the bird simultaneously looks back. Kannisto does not simply show beauty, but sees it as a force and a means of persuasion – if something can influence emotions, it can also change people’s behaviour.

Sanna Kannisto’s production belongs to the traditions of scientific illustration, of staged photographs and still lifes. Collaboration with researchers is an important part of her artistic process.
For her most acclaimed series, Fieldwork, Kannisto worked in the rainforests of Southern and Central America from 2000 to 2011. The works in the series have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions from New York to Milan, Berlin, Helsinki, Paris and London. The series culminated in a comprehensive monograph published by Aperture in 2011.

Kannisto’s extensive solo exhibition was seen at the Centro de la Imagen photography centre in Lima, Peru in the Spring of 2019, and in the coming summer she will take part in a group exhibition of Finnish contemporary art at the Busan Museum of Art in South Korea. Kannisto's previous solo exhibition at Helsinki Contemporary, Observing Eye, was seen in April 2019.

Visit our page on Artsy to preview our booth A05.