The 25th anniversary exhibition at the Centre for Creative Photography takes a look at the Kangas paper-mill area in Jyväskylä through the medium of photography. The former paper mill on the banks of the Tourujoki river, not far from the city centre, is in the grip of change. A multi-dimensional urban space is being planned for this industrial area where the machinery has fallen silent. This change has been recorded and interpreted by local photographic artists Mikko Auerniitty, Jussi Jäppinen, Kapa (Martti Kapanen), Jyrki Markkanen and Rune Snellman. Their work is on show simultaneously in two exhibitions at the Alvar Aalto Museum and Galleria Ratamo.

On the brink of its anniversary year, the Centre for Creative Photography launched a project to document the Kangas paper-mill area in photographs. Five artists were chosen to study the theme, each from their own starting point, producing five different viewpoints on the area’s past and present, on the interaction between nature and the built environment and on the multiple layers of building history that exist in the area.

Photographer Mikko Auerniitty approaches the Kangas area as an industrial area that has fallen silent, left behind in the no-man’s land between the natural landscape and urban space, on which time and the cycle of nature have left their mark. The changing landscape is coloured by the changing seasons and the light that changes with them. Jussi Jäppinen is a graphic designer, writer and photographer who has recorded memento mori in his pictures of plants, animals and the traces of time passing. His photographs show the ephemeral quality of a given moment: the way a dragonfly’s wing can be broken or the way that rust can eat away iron.

Kapa is a photographer who has striven for a feeling of absence in his pictures of empty space; as if someone had just walked out of the door, sat in this chair yesterday, or left a message for the next person to enter the room. On the other hand, Jyrki Markkanen, who is known as a graphic artist, has photographed the bed of the Tourujoki river, which divides the Kangas area, together with its various channels. His exploration of the flow of water in the production of paper has taken the photographer right up to the pipe-work inside the mill buildings. The pictures, taken using a pin-hole camera, have been etched by a space-stopping dimness.

Rune Snellman is a photographer whose pictures have collected memories and stories of the people who once worked inside the mill. This archive of individuals opens windows onto the everyday operations of the mill – the people who have kept the machinery turning and made the place alive.

In association with the exhibition, produced and curated by the Centre for Creative Photography, the Centre has published a book about the project entitled KANGAS, metamorfoosi 1., which is on sale while the exhibition is on, at both the Alvar Aalto Museum and Galleria Ratamo.

Afternoon tea will be served to the public at Galleria Ratamo in the company of the artists who have taken the photographs, on Friday September 26 from 16.30 to 17.30 and on Friday October 17 from 17.00 to 18.00. Admission free, all are welcome!

The Centre for Creative Photography is a regional centre tasked with various things including the promotion of photography, improving the basis for the photographer’s work and creating national and international networks. For further information see: www.ccp.fi

Kangas. The vanishing paper mill

25.9–16.11.2014 in the Gallery at the Alvar Aalto Museum, open Tuesday to Sunday 11.00-18.00
Alvar Aallon katu 7, 40600 Jyväskylä, www.alvaraalto.fi

25.9-19.10.2014 Galleria Ratamo, open Tuesday to Sunday 11.00-18.00
Veturitallinkatu 6, 40100 Jyväskylä, www.jyvaskyla.fi/ratamo

For further information about the exhibition contact:

The Centre for Creative Photography, Director Kimmo Lehtonen,
tel. 040 701 4047, kimmo@kimmolehtonen.fi

Alvar Aalto Museum, curator Mari Murtoniemi,
tel. 040 355 9162, mari.murtoniemi@alvaraalto.fi