Sanna Kannisto

Sanna Kannisto is a Finnish photographer (born 1974) who is noted for her photographs taken in rainforests and for her studio photographs of birds.

Childhood and education Sanna Kannisto was born in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and has said that her childhood experiences outdoors led to her interest in photographing nature. As a girl, she would collect flowers and insects, pick berries and go fishing during the summers and holidays when her family stayed at a cottage near a forest. But her family was not interested in art, museums or culture, so her first real exposure to imagery came via foreign music magazines and MTV, which arrived in Finland when she was 13. Attending Turku University of Applied Sciences (1994 to 1997) provided Kannisto with an opportunity to travel with scientists to the Amazon rainforests where she began photographing some of the images in her first book, Fieldwork. She received her master's degree in 2002 from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture), the noted home of the Helsinki School. Kannisto is one of the second generation of graduates of the Helsinki School, known for advancing the international visibility of Finnish photography, its students and its graduates.

Photography

Fieldwork Kannisto made her first visit with scientists to the Amazon rainforest during her photographic studies at Turku University of Applied Sciences. Ultimately, she made eight trips to rainforests and traveled to Brazil, Costa Rica and French Guiana, remaining for two to three months at a time while staying in scientific field stations and photographing near the scientists. Her photographs from that period are collected in her first book, Fieldwork. "Still Lifes", the first of three series in the book, features photographs shot inside a portable studio. Kannisto built the small studio of white Plexiglas that could be lit with small flashlights on the outside and a front wall of netting where the animals could be placed into and released from the studio. Here, the suspended motion of hummingbird wings that can flap up to 80 beats per second captures that human longing. Sarah Stacke has written: "Kannisto has been developing a style of image making that lives at the intersection of fine art and science and explores the complicated relationship between humans and nature." Although Kannisto has said that she selects the branches with care, ultimately the birds are "conspiratorial partners" in a "collaborative" process, as Barbara Hofmann-Johnson has written, because the birds choose their own position when they decide to alight. While Kannisto's photographs are "documentary in style", as she says, they are not straight photography. She shoots additional photographs of the branches after she has released the birds, and sometimes she combines multiple images, alters the focus or otherwise manipulates the image.

Books

Kannisto, Sanna. Fieldwork. New York: Aperture, 2011. . Kannisto, Sanna. Observing Eye. 2nd edn. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2021. .

Solo exhibitions Exhibition details are drawn from The Helsinki School's Persons Projects.

2006: Yours Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 2006: Galerie La Ferronnerie, Paris, France 2006: Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, USA 2007: Galerie Georg Kargl, Vienna, Austria 2008: Korjaamo Culture Factory, Gallery 1 & 2, Helsinki, Finland 2008: Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt am Main, Germany 2008: Strange Fascination, Galerie La Ferronnerie, Paris, France 2008: Le centre photographique d’Ile-de-France CPIF, together with Ilkka Halso, France 2008: Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Contemporary Art Centre, Bignan, France 2010: Close Observer, Galerie La Ferronnerie, Paris, France 2011: Fieldwork, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, SKMU, Kristiansand, Norway 2012: Close Observer, Gallery Taik, Berlin, Germany 2012: Close Observer, Metronom Gallery, Bologna, Italy 2012: Fieldwork, Le Château d’Eau, Toulouse, France 2022: Sense of Wonder, Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France 2022: Research on Wonder, Galerie La Ferronnerie, Paris, France 2015: Finland State Prize for Photographic Art 2017: Finnish Art Society, William Thuring Prize 2020: Finnish Cultural Foundation

Selected collections

Centre Pompidou, Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris, France Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, France Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland Le Fonds national d'art contemporain (FNAC), The State Art Collection, Paris, France Domaine Départemental de Chamarande, Chamarande, France Fondazione Modena Arte Visive, Modena, Italy Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland