Man and Nature ‒ Luca Berti’s photographs of 21st century Finnish rural culture at the National Museum of Finland 08.06.‒02.09.2018

The exhibition is an artistic and ethnographic photo documentary about the landscape and the rural people living today in Finnish countryside. The documentary aims to create a portrait of the Finnish rural culture, focusing of what has survived the modern urbanisation of the land: the traditional architecture, the cultural landscape and finally the rural people in their everyday life.

The project has been thought and developed as a travel through Finland, from Ostrobothnia to Lapland, from Karelia to the south coast. The travel took place on June 2016 and new ones are planned for the next future. Luca Berti is only using analogue b/w photography and he is following the entire process from the planning of the project, the actual field work and photographing, the darkroom’s work of developing the film negative plates and printing on silver gelatine photo paper, the mounting and curating of the exhibitions and books.

The style of the documentary follows the classic way of photographing of the beginning of the 20th century, based on aesthetic realism and historic consciousness. In continuity with documentary photographers like August Sander, Knud Knudsen and Axel Lindal, inspired by their old techniques, all the b/w pictures are taken with a big format analogue camera and the prints are handmade in the darkroom by the artist in his studio in Copenhagen.

Luca Berti (1978) was born and raised in Florence, Italy. Working as freelance artist photographer in Copenhagen since 2006. He is collaborating on several ethnographic and artistic projects with national and regional museums in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Italy.

The exhibition consists 37 photographs taken in Finland and 10 taken in Estonia and is on display  8.6.–2.9.2018 in the pop-up facility of the National Museum and has free admission.

A publication entitled LUCA BERTI Man and Nature, Photographs from the Finnish Countryside / LUCA BERTI Ihminen ja luonto, Valokuvia Suomen maaseudulta (PARVS) price €25, is on sale at the museum shop of the National Museum.

More information
Aino-Maija Kaila, Curator, [email protected], tel. +358 (0)295 336 362

Press photos


THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINLAND
Mannerheimintie 34. Helsinki
The museum is open Mon-Sun 11 am to 6 pm, Wed 11 am to 8 pm.
Admission fees: Adults €15 / Discount ticket €11 / For Museum and Helsinki card holders €3 / Under 18 years old free entrance.
www.kansallismuseo.fi