About...

Niittyvirta's extensive production does consist not only of the various photographic works but instead reaches out far beyond his main tool - the camera. The abstract glamour of the visual effects has been produced with the combination of the different digital methods and utilising the knowledge of the biological and chemical processes. This means that the outcome of the pictures is not based on the traditional photographic process.

Niittyvirta is also fascinated by the forces of the social circumstances and how the individual decisions tend to create massactions. His creative works explore the relationship of the scenery, the space and a human being. The pictures bring into the focus the built-up environments and the effects that they have on our daily decisions and the activities of the different groups.

Atlas

Artworks with in the series "Atlas", studies the relationship between analogue and digital imaging and explores different ways to approach today's aggressive image culture. Work also studies contemporary information society's nature, birth and history.

Series includes "abstract-like images", which are difficult to intrepid by using traditional image codes. This working method creates a barrier between the gaze and the image. Thus questioning the way photographs are traditionally looked and perceived. As a result this method disturbs the reality we are used to see in photographs.

My aim is to allow each photograph works as an individual entity, without
The restrictions caused by serialization. In exhibition space conversations are formed between the images, which differ from the more traditional narrative approach. This is due to independent nature of each image.

In my photographic approach, my interest continues beyond the camera.
Some of my works, "Fallout" and "Ghost", are created with utilization of different biological processes (photosynthesis etc.)
"On contrary" works "Black Sheep" and "Unexpected end-of-file was encountered" are results of research of binary code of digital images and/or combining the with the human genome sequences.

(un)Disciplined Events

Pekka Niittyvirta’s work explores the relationship and interaction between landscape, space and individuals. The images bring up the possibilities of active influence by the built environment, and its effect on individuals choices and actions. Niittyvirta’s interests are also directed towards the influence of social events – how individual choices guided by them turn into mass actions.

Pekka Niittyvirta’s work has a documentaristic approach. He collects images from the surrounding world, photographing different locations and situations. The motives are contradictory: city – country, public – private, masses – individual, mundane – exceptional. The attempt to represent the collisions and interactions between people and environment, built and unbuilt.

Critic Anu Uimonen from Helsingin Sanomat (the premier daily Finnish language newspaper), notes that Niittyvirta manages to create an atmosphere of mystery , which awake both questions and stories in viewers mind. She sees in the work the strangeness of manmade environment, especially where it meets nature. Anu Uimonen also describes the varied qualities of light in Niittyvirta's images. She is particularly taken by the amazing afternoon sun in Kaisaniemi where the light creates a feeling of space with elongated shadows of young people sitting on the grass. The image reminds her of Édouard Manet’s classical 1863 painting Luncheon on the Grass, whereas today the luncheon seems to be replaced by bottles of beer.

Photographic Gallery Hippolyte

Greetings from Helsinki

By Santtu Parkkonen / Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.5.2006

Photographer Pekka Niittyvirta got thoroughly fed up with a situation that seemed to repeat itself every time he travelled: he could never find any postcards that actually said anything real about the destination. It was just Eiffel Towers, churches, and other tourist sightseeing evergreens.
When Niittyvirta got home to Helsinki, he saw to his dismay that the situation was no different here. "Helsinki presents itself in postcards as the Sibelius Monument, the Lutheran Cathedral, and other stock clichés, and that is just about it."

...Niittyvirta's postcards show "Helsinki by Sleet", they show dirty windows, they present streets in a permanent state of being dug up for repair, and they show over-indulged men and other party animals crashed out on park benches, on the grass, or in doorways. "It is quite disturbing that people passing out after getting drunk are regarded as quite normal in Helsinki, and nobody pays any attention any longer to the slumped bundles", ponders Niittyvirta.

The less than attractive situations portrayed are for real; they have not been set up for the camera. Niittyvirta has merely captured them on his compact digital while out walking on his normal routes, for instance in the Kallio and Hakaniemi districts, and in the downtown area of the capital.

"I just shoot whatever comes in front of the lens. If I had gone out with the specific plan of hunting down suitable images, then there would have been more from the suburbs." The pictures on the cards are accompanied by the tried-and-tested postcard texts, such as Greetings from Helsinki, Spirit of Helsinki, Helsinki by Night, and Helsinki Many Faces. "There are even some captions that I have swiped from the brochure produced to advertise the new EU Chemicals Agency to be located in Helsinki", explains Niittyvirta.

...He is unfazed by worries about Helsinki's image. "I believe that the cards will actually even make a positive impression, particularly among young people. There is no way this can be a destructive exercise."

More images: www.greetings.fi