Often, playfulness can be perceived as naivety when associated with a female artist. However, in this project, Sarpaniemi employs it as a source of power. Through play, she envisions possibilities for new ways of existence and influence.
Artist: Emma Sarpaniemi
Project: Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower
Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower (2021- ongoing) is a performative photography series exploring women’s self-portraiture through play. To free the subject and the gaze from certain patriarchal ideals of femininity, the character depicted in the images is portrayed playfully and tenderly as a woman who behaves, looks, and performs on her terms and rules. Identity, reality, and imagination become blurred in the world created by Emma Sarpaniemi. Often, playfulness can be perceived as naivety when associated with a female artist. However, in this project, Sarpaniemi employs it as a source of power. Through play, she envisions possibilities for new ways of existence and influence.
Sarpaniemi selects the clothes, stages the scenes, photographs and designs the self-portraits herself. The starting point for self-portraits in the project is often an object or clothing found at a flea market, from which the artist begins to construct a photograph.
She is interested in using everyday objects in an unpredictable manner to create contradictions and alternative symbolic meanings within the photographs. The photographic series comprises a combination of homestudio portraits and scenes captured in domestic settings.
The character is situated in private environments, bringing the viewer closer to the subject’s world and imagination. The photographs present moments of intimacy and play between the character and the viewer.
© Emma Sarpaniemi