The Log Lady - Ulla Jokisalo & Hilla Kurki in Dialogue

Two Finnish female photographers, each from her own generation, meet here at Fotografisk Center in a dialogue exhibition with the focus on themes shared by their respective practices. Central issues like identity, body and gender are recurring motifs in the work of each, while themes related to needlework, textiles and clothing appear in the work of both photographers, as do scissors as a tool.

Another feature they share is that personal memories play an absolutely central role. For Jokisalo it is the visual universe of childhood in the form of her mother’s women’s magazines and family photographs, for Kurki it is the memory of a sister who died and the use of her clothes.

The idea of the duo exhibition is to create a dynamic between the two oeuvres, each of which is allowed to unfold in its distinctiveness, and at the same time to initiate a dialogue. This exhibition has borrowed it’s title
from a character in the TV series Twin Peaks – an underscoring of the mysterious, slightly ‘eerie’ elements in the universe of both photographers.

Since the 1990’s Finnish photography has made its mark both in the Nordic countries and internationally, especially through photographers from the so-called Helsinki School, that is photographers who have graduated from Aalto University. This applies to both Hilla Kurki and Ulla Jokisalo, with Jokisalo having been on the faculty there.

The exhibition, which presents the two photographers in Copenhagen for the first time, has been realized with help from Gallery Taik Persons and with support from the Finnish Cultural Institute in Denmark, the Committee for Visual Art in Copenhagen and the Danish Arts Foundation.