The core theme in my work is the study of nostalgia - its destructive yet vital role in the shaping and maintaining of memories. I reconstruct and reshape memories into alternative forms – ones that, instead of photorealistic landscapes, include the odd effects of forgetting, sugar-coating and replacing the actual past. I don't seek to show places and scenes as they once were, but as they are in their afterlife, the Now. I am endlessly fascinated by the dark space between the Then and the Now, where by some mysterious process, life becomes drenched with meaning.

To me, the photograph is essentially the embodiment of nostalgia. Working with photography provides a delicate balance to my two yearnings as an archivist and as a destroyer. Past is both a treasure and a burden. To see it transform and mutate provides a certain relief for my simultaneous desires to see everything go up in flames and collect and preserve all that I can.

Laura Konttinen (b. 1987 in Säynätsalo, Finland) uses photography both as a medium and a material. She works by constructing miniature landscapes out of her own photographs and various materials such as mirrors, sugar or fake hair. She then photographs the installations, completing the disintegcycle of a disintegration and reconstruction. Instead of digital aftereffects, Konttinen plays analogue tricks on the camera through surreal scenesetting and carefully considered arrangements. Through crafting by hand, the photograph reveals its thinness and fragility.

Laura Konttinen studied visual art and photography in Tampere, Finland and Edinburgh, Scotland. She has held several solo exhibitions and participated in various group exhibitions and photo festivals in Finland and abroad. Most recently her work has been featured in group exhibitions in Bury Art Museum, UK, and Salo Art Museum, Finland. Konttinen is represented by Finnish Art Agency. She works and lives in Helsinki.

For more information, please contact Laura Konttinen at: laura.konttinen@gmail.com or visit: www.laurakonttinen.net
Interview with Laura Konttinen here