galleria heino

Jaakko Heikkilä 9.1. - 31.1.2010

Cida, Cero, Janko and Tina

Cero takes her wife Cida into his arms in their new apartment built by the island city of Itaparica and whispers that there is too much violence in Rio.

- Here we have it good. It is safe in here.

At the same time in Balkan Tina writes and reads her homework in Serbian. But her grandmother, who is swinging her legs in the kitchen, she thanks for dinner in her own language: Mulzamiec! It is ancient Romanian, language of the border. Everyone speaks it. It is not written or read.

The photographs of this exhibition are taken of people in Brazil and Romania. In Romania I have worked on a project named “Lost in Europe” during 2007 and 2008. The Vlach’s are a minority in eastern Serbian that speaks old Romanian.
In Brazil I did a communal project during the winter of 2008 in a new council estate on the island of Itaparica, close to Salvador. This project was made possible by the artists’ residence of Sacatar Foundation.

Jaakko Heikkilä

Jaakko Heikkilä (b.1956) portrays people with warmth and compassion. He has long been interested in minorities and small communities, which he has photographed for example in Tornio Valley, Finland, in Russian and in Harlem, New York. His last major work was an exhibition and book project about the Armenian Diaspora named “Unspoken Destinies”. Jaakko Heikkilä was given 1st prize in Hanau International Art Competition in Germany in 2002 and he has also received The State Prize for Photographic Art in Finland in 2007.