Rauha Helin
Katoan Katseelta / I Dissapear from the Gaze
[2023-2026]
Pohjavirta / Undercurrent
[2024-]
The photograph is a desperate
attempt to hold on to
[2024]
Installation Views
Printed works
Biography / CV
rauha.helin(at)gmail.com
The photograph is a desperate attempt to hold on to
2024
I got my hands on some old negatives that my grandmother had taken when she was about my age. My fathers father appeared in many of the pictures.
The photograph is a desperate attempt to hold on to (Valokuva on epätoivoinen yritys pitää kiinni) is a work combining text and photographs for trying to remember everything. Even things before me.
It is a visual report of an attempt to control ones own narrative trace of images. In this work, I examine the construction of memory through photography. The work consists of documentation of a change I experienced fall 2024 and archival photos taken by my grandmother.
What do we want to leave behind of ourselves and for what reason? In this work, I reflect on how images from two different generations communicate when they meet on the same time level, like collective memories that mix in the mind regardless of the distance between years.
My grandmothers pictures tell the story of a person I never knew, but whose life suddenly appeared for me in pictures. These ordinary pictures triggered a chain of thoughts in me, which six months later, have led to this. A desperate attempt to understand myself and my own voice as a storyteller and illustrator.
What am I gathering as evidence of my life, and for whom? Do individual pictures still have value in our time?