Mirja by the river

It’s spring. Mirja stands in her home riverbank. The ice is leaving the Kukkola rapid and river. Behind the ices, on the other side of the river, is Sweden. The image comes from a theme “Jesus stands on the Swedish side”. It’s a name of the work still in a process, with which I elaborate my home region, Torne River Valley. Sweden and Finland’s northern border and people’s mentality in that area. I have been representing different kind of communities in my home region but also in Russia, Venice, Armenia, New York, Los Angeles, Brazil, Cuba and Serbia. In all the themes, also in the centres of metropolises, a uniting factor is minorities, ethnic minorities, third party, people who are suffocated one way or another. I consider the themes of my work political, somehow also topical. But yet I constantly feel that I don’t represent what I shoot. I quote my favorite Swedish writer Torgny Lindgren: “ Actually I’m accidentally reached those people who are looking for water. I use them to create shape and form. Our yearning of eternity is yearning of shape and form.” ”