Photography statement

By Perttu Saksa

http://www.perttusaksa.com/

OuR RELATIONSHIPONANI-

MAL is based on desire, on human condition. Animals are mirror reflecting on anything we want them to be. I do portraits of men and animals, of man and animal. I see and make no difference. I want to see man in animal. Man through animal.

Animals do not create narratives. They exist. We co-exist. Animal representations are based on narratives, not on nature, not on animals, but on us. We look at animal how we want it to be and wish us to be.

How to relate on the world? How to be with each other? Our relationship with the animals create a shape and base for us to dwell in the world. We build our relationship with nature on language. We tame and define nature by naming natural beings and so we bring them into culture. I am interested in this. I want to separate the meat from the bones. I am curious. On how nature becomes culture and culture becomes nature. How nature flourish again when things lose their meaning and born free without a man’s given name.

I want to challenge us to examine the way we perceive ourselves by naming and defining things. Images force us to relate ourselves with their chosen motifs. Vulnerability is Visibility. Photography is subjecting its subjects and motifs to be viewed. Things that we otherwise would not care to take on our contemplation or include in our existence. I want to be aware of this and our places in dwelling the world. Our histories are written and represented through the burden of photography and natural science. I frame notions on these mediums, unleash histories made with them into questions. In these questions– Animal is an analog. Animal is a mirror.

I am an animal.