ART CENTER AHJO, HIILI-ROOM; MERKKIPAIKKOJA

TERHI SKIPPARI - MERKKIPAIKKOJA 9.7.-27.7.2025

I have created the Merkkipaikkoja exhibition around the Merkkipaikkoja photo art book, published by me in 2023, and around the themes and photographs it contains. The book and exhibition consist of various location photographs, non-locational environments and modern landscape images, as well as short sentences or words attached to them, which are based on my own personal memories of the places.

With the book and the exhibition, I have aimed to reach people's shared experiences and shared memory, or memories, and to awaken each exhibition visitor's own memories and experiences. In addition to feelings and memories, the exhibition and the book also documents changes in landscapes and society in recent years.

On a societal level, you can find from images references to, for example, the desolation of country, forest harvesting and the emergence of chain stores, while on an individual level, it is interesting how a completely ordinary street corner can leave a very strong place-related memory, or how some childhood memories are very strongly attached to certain places even when remembered as an adult, even though the places may have already changed their forms to very different.

The pictures in the book were taken in 2021-2023, mainly in Southeast Finland, in the regions of Kymenlaakso and Etelä-Karjala, and a few individual pictures from Päijät-Häme.

Merkkipaikkoja exhibition has been supported by Karjalan Kulttuurirahasto. The publication of the Merkkipakkoja book in 2023 has been supported by Pirkko ja Veikko Mäkelän Säätiö.

Terhi Skippari (b.1998) is a visual artist from Lappeenranta, Finland, who works mainly with photography, images and words, and jewellery. Skippari’s works have dealt with place history, memory and remembering, roots, and feelings of belonging and non-belonging, often through the artist’s own personal experiences.

Art Exhibition Opening:
8.7.2025 klo: 18-20

Artist Meeting:
27.7.2025 klo: 16-17

Images:
Terhi Skippari - Kotitie I
Terhi Skippari - Merkkipaikkoja
Terhi Skippari - Merkkipaikkoja, Book Cover