Traces of an Absent Past was born from Katri Heinämäki’s desire to explore found family photos from the perspective of vision. She has approached the slides she bought from flea markets as objects and materials rather than as representations of the personalities, lives and memories of the people in the photos. By manipulating and breaking the chemical emulsion on the plastic surface of the slides, on which the photos are immortalized, Heinämäki has examined what remains of the original photo. How does the meaning and content of the photo change and how does the old photo appear in a new context?
Heinämäki’s experimental working method and its random results have much in common with photographs, whose messages unfold differently for each viewer, depending on who we are and how we look at the images.
The nature of family photographs is a mixture of the private and the shared. On the one hand, they support stories of family history and notions of identity and the past. On the other hand, family photographs always contain questions and reflections about what our family, social life and home look like, and how we would like to be seen. Family photographs, perceived as private collections, are therefore also social – intended for others to see and penetrated by many different gazes.
Katri Heinämäki
Traces of an Absent Past
1.11.-23.12.2025
Photo North – Pohjoinen valokuvakeskus, foyer gallery