What is the difference between looking and seeing?
Soininen’s photographs are dreamlike landscapes, self-portraits and still lifes. They are based on scenes she has encountered: foliage, flower-filled meadows, streets, electrical wires and animals – objects that have asked to be photographed. Soininen’s imagery is not anything unseen, yet nothing feels familiar.
Soininen employs a documentary approach, and her works are not heavily edited. When taking photographs, she sometimes uses flash, colour gels or smoke to bring out her subject. Often, the composition and cropping help bring out the significant factor or phenomenon that has captured her attention in the surrounding world.
Undeniably, the months-long LSD-induced psychosis she has experienced has left an irreversible mark on her artistic expression. In her work, Soininen sheds light on psychosis as both a traumatic and awakening state – one in which conventional meanings are dismantled and replaced by an alternate, compelling reality, revealed through signs and messages that seem to appear everywhere.
Soininen’s interest in grounded experiences of consciousness stems from a deep concern that significance and value are fading away. Overabundance, the inflation caused by the excess of everything, is an existential matter. For Soininen, psychosis offered a form of relief. Soininen depicts psychosis as a recuperation of signs and their meanings, which has led her to interpret familiar things in a new light.
Since then, art and photography have freed Soininen to explore identity and existence that merges spiritual experience with external reality and the inner world. This sense of unity – perceiving oneself as a part of the universe – also ties together various psychedelic experiences.
Between looking and seeing lies a space the size of one’s consciousness. We can look at anything, but we cannot see beyond the scope of our own awareness.
The exhibition, The Trees Are Not What They Seem, features photographs and a video work. The latest series in progress, Shallow Waters, Misty Waves, explores the beauty of everyday reality and the mystical, strange elements intertwined with it. The earlier series, titled The Transcendent Country of The Mind (2019–2021), depicts the otherworldly realm revealed through Soininen’s psychosis, as well as the act of reconciling with this world. The exhibition also showcases self-portraits that serve as a therapeutic motif for Soininen, helping her process her experiences.
Sari Soininen (b. Raisio, Finland) graduated as a Master of Photography from UWE Bristol in 2021, and completed her BA at Lahti Institute of Design (2014). Since 2021, Soininen’s photographs have generated considerable interest worldwide. The international press, including The Guardian, Financial Times and Libération, has featured her photographs extensively.
Soininen’s most recent solo exhibitions include Transcendent Country of the Mind (Galleria Heino, Helsinki, 2025), Mindscapes (Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva, 2024) and Terra Incognita (Galleria Koivulinna, Pukkila, 2024). Since 2021, she has participated in numerous international group exhibitions. Her art books have also gained considerable international visibility, including the Transcendent Country of the Mind (The Eriskay Connection, 2022) which is currently out of print.
Finnish Cultural Foundation has supported the artist’s work. The exhibition has received funding from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), Finnfoto and Finnish Heritage Agency.
More information
Curator
Niina Tanskanen
niina.tanskanen@avan.fi
040 585 4499
