Master's students' exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography
The new exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography showcases nineteen artists who are new Aalto University Master of Arts graduates from the Art and Media department’s Photography program. The works in the exhibition are part of the graduates’ final thesis projects.
Each graduating year represents an image of unique voices and spaces that is closely tied to contemporary phenomena in society and art. Over the course of their student years, previously unknown individuals become mirrors for each other, for whom art is a conduit that links the past, present, and future together.
‘The photographs on display use materials and techniques far beyond the medium’s traditional scope to examine, explore, and interrogate issues relating to the materiality and objectness of photographic media, human-and-nature relationships, constructions of landscape, connections between technology and culture, vernacular and institutional archival practices, personal histories and autobiographies, and political critiques of power structures and mechanisms of oppression. Photography is revealed through these explorations as an interdisciplinary medium, never cut off and always intimately tied to other senses, sciences, and artforms’, Rebecca Sandelin, one of the artists in the exhibition describes the diversity.
‘This exhibition is many things: a playground, a laboratory, a studio, a stage. Most importantly, it is a checkpoint, a step for many of us towards new challenges, possible failures, and even greater achievements.’
A selection of works in the exhibition:
Elisabet Cavén's work "The Home Odyssey IX" (2021) is a looking glass into her own journey. Subtle humor and small insights are characteristics of her often home-built works.
Charlotta Rajala's "Last summer, the month before, even yesterday lose their meaning as the memories begin to drain away" (2022) reflects on the value of disappearance, the meaning and problematic nature of memory and the concepts of silence and emptiness.
Carl Victor Wingren’s "Gloop 5" (2022) intertwines photography and installation. They work with natural biomaterials to question achievability and permanence. The works are presented in a state of flux; they transition between digital and material and wet and dry.
The works are on display also in Instagram: @aaltoarts
The MoA in Photography ’23 artists:
Lorena Articardi, Elisabet Cavén, Juan Couder, Francisco González Camacho, Maite González Laurens, Iina Gröhn, Katri Heinämäki, Mari Hokkanen, Alexander Komenda, Viena Kytöjoki, Hanna Linnove, Lyydia Osara, Charlotta Rajala, Rebecca Sandelin, Lada Suomenrinne, Niko Tampio, Lydia Toivanen, Carl Victor Wingren ja Yujie Zhou.
The Finnish Museum of Photography at Cable Factory (Kaapelitehdas), Helsinki
27.1.–12.3.2023
Read more news
Growing Materials, Growing Ideas: Inside the BioMaker Studio
At Aalto University’s BioMaker Studio, initiated by Ena Naito, students and researchers experiment with living materials, from algae to mycelium, creating an open, interdisciplinary space where design, biology, and collaboration grow together.
The year in Review: What happened in 2025?
A recap of the milestones of the Master in Contemporary Design in 2025
“This hands-on approach is the absolute best way to learn” – Loyola University and Aalto University partnered for the sixth time
Isabel Towghi shares her experience from Aalto University Summer School.