Curatorial Notes - Emma Sarpaniemi

When I met Emma for the first time, it was a hot and rainy day, with summer gone and autumn just around the corner. We talked about how women were often portrayed in photography – and her interest in questioning the systematics surrounding this very motif. We laughed a lot, and I asked her countless questions about the props she was using, the – mostly primary – colors she liked, and how she comes up with her quirky ideas, staging herself and often her friends, like in the series When the Sun Goes Down We See Lemons.

This dialogue happened in 2022, and since then, her practice has gained coherence while not losing any playfulness. Her process has changed slightly in recent years, and walking and hiking, spending time in Iceland, have become catalysts in her artistic journey. Her image-making process takes time, let alone the editing. She describes how looking closely at nature – like watching the tree in front of her house change over the course of the seasons – nurtures her ability to observe and focus.

Emma Sarpaniemi’s artistic world can be described as a fantastical, feminist, and playful space – one that invites viewers to immerse themselves completely. Rooted in classic artistic and photographic genres such as the portrait and the staged environment, her practice takes both the artist’s own journey and that of the viewer seriously.

While including props such as a baguette, a toy tent, and a stationary bike – which she most likely sourced at a flea market – Emma focuses her gaze on us, creating unique self-portraits made possible through the use of a cable release. In recent years, she has begun working with an assistant, who focuses the camera and advances the film, allowing her to remain in the flow in front of the camera. But it’s more than just taking the image. Emma describes the relationship as being of a delicate nature; she’s very conscious of herself being vulnerable while creating a setting and staging herself, often interweaving personal emotions.

When she presented her work at the Finnish Museum of Photography in a solo exhibition titled Honey Crunch in 2024, it was also an experiment in how to extend the photographic image into the exhibition space, with a playroom loaded with colorful plastic balls

Performing for the camera is particular in Emma’s case because it is always herself; it’s all in the picture: her ideas, her emotions, her vulnerability – she’s not an artist playing a role or making up a character. Of course, there is always ambivalence in how little we get to know an artist as a person through their work, despite the fact that autobiographical aspects are meant to be readable as such.

While working on my notes for this text, I reread a lot about Francesca Woodman (1958–1981), and the fact that the discourse on her take on performance and self-representation has been defined mostly by scholars after her tragic passing by suicide at the age of 22. If magic wands existed, I’d love to moderate an artist talk with Francesca and Emma, talking about their performative practices and their take on experimenting with photography. Like Francesca Woodman, Emma likes to work and experiment in the darkroom: Up until now, all her small formats are developed by herself, and she is still working with analogue techniques.

Her love for materiality and the notion that different textures can tell parts of a story alongside the images have led Emma to start creating handmade artist frames, all unique pieces. But here again comes her concern for the different viewers – with limited budgets, I may add – into the picture: After a thoughtful conversation at a festival, an art fair, or elsewhere, you might receive a small print, about the size of a postcard, gifted by the artist and used as her business card. Using photography in all its reproductive glory, while also thinking about how it can be a unique piece of art, goes hand in hand for Emma.

If I look at older and newer images, I like to daydream that performing like Emma in one of her images would make a great escape in my everyday life: It feels like becoming a trusted confidant, a fun feminist who tackles work, chores, smaller and larger crises in a unique color palette. It is also an invitation to question myself and my way of performing.

This is maybe one of the biggest qualities of Emma Sarpaniemi: not only to question gazes, notions of gender, and how to really look at your surroundings, but to trust your gut feeling, look for the whimsical, and feel your vulnerable self unapologetically.