In her performative photographs, Finnish artist Emma Sarpaniemi (b.1993) repeatedly stages herself in surprising new ways. Unusual clothing, landscapes, and strange-looking objects form the inspiration and equipment for her humorous self-portraits. Absurd and comical constellations that make viewers smile and sometimes even laugh out loud. Like a snake shedding its skin, Emma Sarpaniemi changes her outer shell and slips into costumes, props, and rooms. Although the artist‘s disguises, role-playing games, and toys may always subtly evoke childhood experiences, the images are far more than just childish, naive fun in their profundity and thoughtfulness.

The artist repeatedly subverts cultural clichés and gender-specific expectations in a provocative, ironic, and uninhibited manner, using sexualized innuendo and double entendres—whether in the jacket of a circus director with open trousers, a gigantic fabric pencil in the crotch or a rolling pin on her bare buttocks. In some of her more recent works, such as Toukan Kanto (Carrying the Caterpillar), Emma Sarpaniemi uses colored passe-partouts with cut-out shapes in the center. The French Girl (Series III), with a baguette peeking out cheekily and suggestively from the artist‘s crotch, appears in a passe-partout with an apple silhouette—a cheeky allusion to biblical temptation.

In her portraits, Emma Sarpaniemi clearly appears not only as the subject, but also as the creator and director of her own staging. She always deliberately holds the camera in plain view for everyone to see and determines what we see of her. Despite her great lightness, she subtly and sensitively creates situations that are touching and make us curious about the background of the images. Viewers are encouraged to look closely, wanting to understand what is going on, and to discover what the artist evokes in them: empathy and emotions, but also stories and interpretations that unfold differently in the minds of the audience each time.