Nanna Hänninen

8.3. - 6.4.2014

Witnesses of the Others

Nanna Hänninen connects historical photographs to the present by painting on them.

Hänninen explores personal themes and her own family background by appropriating photographs. Using brushstrokes in acrylic to steer our viewing of the pictures from 1870–1960, she directs our attention to a pose, a facial expression, a hand in a lace glove, an accidental passer-by. The subject matter of the photographs is recognisable, the painted additions abstract.

The pictures are copies of photographs by Viktor Barsokevitsch (1863–1933) and Karl Granit (1857–1894) found in the collections of the Kuopio Museum of Cultural History, as well as pictures from family albums taken in Helsinki, Viipuri, Vienna, Berlin, Kuopio and other places. Hänninen’s grandfather, who appears in the pictures both as a child and an adult, was himself a portrait photographer in Rautalammi and Kuopio.

ersonal themes and her own family background by appropriating photographs. Using brushstrokes in acrylic to steer our viewing of the pictures from 1870–1960, she directs our attention to a pose, a facial expression, a hand in a lace glove, an accidental passer-by. The subject matter of the photographs is recognisable, the painted additions abstract.

The pictures are copies of photographs by Viktor Barsokevitsch (1863–1933) and Karl Granit (1857–1894) found in the collections of the Kuopio Museum of Cultural History, as well as pictures from family albums taken in Helsinki, Viipuri, Vienna, Berlin, Kuopio and other places. Hänninen’s grandfather, who appears in the pictures both as a child and an adult, was himself a portrait photographer in Rautalammi and Kuopio.