In the Presence of Hope - behind the scenes: About the theme
For the last year, I’ve been working on a project with a name In the Presence of Hope - Toivon äärellä in Finnish which is now starting to unravel into public display (so happy!!).
So if you’re interested, as a fellow photographer or perhaps a person with a personal health challenge of your own, here goes the background story!
About finding the theme
For a long time, I had been thinking (only thinking) about creating a photography exhibition combining portrait photography and some bigger, underlying theme that could carry meaning in people’s everyday lives. The theme found me in October 2023, when I was reading an interview of Ms. Krista Launonen, who shared her story on how her everyday life had exploded with the sudden diagnosis of an incurable cancer. Her interview got me thinking these could be life stories I wanted to tell the world and that could perhaps help someone in a difficult situation. How does it change your perspective, when you know the sickness will also be your companion - in one form or another? What keeps you going? What are the things that feel unbearable and how does it change your thinking on happiness and life in general. Krista became my first model in October 2023, starting the project.
Life has its ups and downs (more than we’d like to think)
The heavy topic of living with incurable diagnosis may feel too heavy at a first glance, but for hundreds of thousands of people and their families & closest ones it’s everyday life. Over 30,000 people get cancer every year only in Finland. Around two out of three of us will get a cancer at some point in our lives. Most of them are luckily curable - a higher percentage every year, as our knowledge increases and the medicines and healthcare technology develop. In addition to cancer, there are very many different kinds of long-term diseases and life-altering abbreviations, like MS, ALS, AD (Alzheimers/dementia)…
And still - life goes on, despite the heavy news. It may have a different rhythm as well as new challenges - every person’s life story is unique - but with the life-altering condition comes also other things. How has the diagnosis changed one’s life or personality, and has it brought anything positive?
Piritta dancing in Porkkala cliffs. One of the hottest summer nights in 2024, an evening of beauty (despite many funny surprises).
Sickness can seldom be seen from looking at one’s appearance. This came through also in the stories of my ‘super models’ - many young and all beautiful - many of whom had sad experiences of people not believing or being able to grasp the serious condition due to the healthy-looking outer appearance. What would be the learnings for us, the healthy friends, family members and colleagues on how to react to their life change and encounter them “right”?
Finding my team of super models
After Krista, I started to find the people to photograph, which proved to be trickier than I expected. It didn’t feel right to start asking random people in social media if they are ‘incurable’ and not all wanted to tell their stories. Finally, I found a wonderful person who works with several peer support organizations, Ms. Miia Merikallio, who shared by quest of finding models in her networks, ending in more volunteers I could take part of the project. After finding 12 volunteers, I was forced to only thank the rest. Thank you Miia and everyone who had the courage to raise their hand!
Us as part of nature
After finding my ‘team’, I started to plan the nature locations and time the photo shoots. I had the vision of photographing them in the beauty of nature, which is also a place with a calming, happiness-inducing effect for us humans. More about that later!