The Night Spots series is part of the new "dark series" by the Swedish photographer Julia Peirone (b. 1973). Most of the pictures are new and are being shown for the first time. In these digital-montage images, people in everyday situations are surrounded by darkness. The exhibition also includes a video, Waiting for Red Pigtails, based on the same series. In Peirone’s pictures, the characters are often seen alone against a monochromatic background, taken out of their normal environment, or brought into unexpected company. In Night Spots, brightly lit figures are surrounded by nocturnal darkness. In Waiting for red pigtails (2004), these surprising encounters also continue on the level of language: spoken sentences describing the pictures are cut and recombined so that new meanings appear in the pictures. Stripped of their familiar surroundings, the characters are alone in the midst of something invisible. They are often girls, but the same perspective can also be used to portray a man, woman, boy or animal. Peirone says she is looking for an atmosphere somewhere between the humorous and the serious, something like a memory in which sadness or fear is mixed with joy and strength, "there is a sound of giggling, albeit from far away". An Argentinean-born Swede, Julia Peirone graduated from the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (MFA) in Stockholm and has held solo exhibitions, mainly in Sweden. She also took part in the Northern Cities project, in which young Nordic photographers worked together in six Northern towns. The exhibition is being supported by IASPIS and The Finnish-Swedish Cultural Fund.