Galleri Flach is pleased to present photographs by Ville Lenkkeri in the exhibition “Dreams and Awakenings”. Two interwoven themes are presented in the exhibition, themes that Lenkkeri has developed and worked with in recent years, and that have been exhibited in various exhibitions around Europe.
Ville Lenkkeri has travelled far to research places and people that have come in his way. It is places that are remote in both time and place, but that also bear traces of histories that tell us something essential about our contemporary outlook and ourselves. In the series “The Place of No Roads” and “Civil Courage” we are able to take part of these experiences and chance meetings, registered and mediated by a person, or a place and their special aura. The exhibition “Dreams and Awakenings” features images from both these series in an interwoven communication.
Ville Lenkkeri says that his photographs stem from a complex search for what is true and real in relation to the image and its necessary simplification and stylization.
– The strength of the image, but also its truth is that it can be interpreted, that it can be seen as a history, Lenkkeri says.
In the photographs we meet landscapes where fragments of wires, roads and buildings penetrates an outer coating of picturesque sceneries. We see interiors that are about to decompose, but at the same time tell of human activities, practical and aesthetic needs. We encounter people in an everyday-disguise, but that hides a heroic courage and a will to overcome everyday accidents.
Histories are told through the people, in both images and short texts. It is a reality that is mediated through subjective interpretations in a balancing act between the seemingly documentary and the fictional, something that has always been an important dimension in Ville Lenkkeri’s work.
