10 Question Column: Finnish Photographer Konsta Leppänen

Photographer Konsta Leppänen with his adopted pointer Buster, found in the streets of Spain. "People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction."

Konsta Leppänen is a talented young photographer from Finland and a member of the 11 Collective who won the biggest Finnish photojournalism prize this year, the Patricia Seppälä Foundation Award. Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento ask the hipster and intellectual 10 Questions about his life and work

KONSTA Leppänen’s landscape and urban photographs often have a solitary figure lost in a vast alienating cityscape or a sea of snow and water that capture a sense of spiritual and physical isolation. Yet his portraits of people are full of dynamism and life and seem to fizz with suppressed energy. Leppänen alternates between using black and white pictures and those that are more saturated to explicate the contrasts in Finnish life and culture.

His passion for photography began when he started shooting portraits of people on the street and then later joined the 11 Collective, the group of avant-garde photojournalists. He says the collective's aim is to create a new type of Finnish documentary photography. Working with the group, he produces annual in-depth photo essays around chosen themes. 

“Our first project was about Finland and the exhibition has toured around the country for a year now, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki,’’ says Leppänen. “The main idea is to collectively help each individual with their personal projects and to diminish the loneliness of the process. From very early on we expose the process of visual storytelling to the analytical evaluation and constructive criticism of members of the group.”

Today, Leppänen is studying the Master's Program in Visual Journalism at Tampere University and works as a freelance photographer and photojournalist, alternating between working for well-known Finnish magazines and newspapers and making social documentaries.

1.What are you currently working on? 
I’m working on several different projects, two of which are part of our 11 Collective’s upcoming group projects. I was recently in Egypt reporting about the unrest there and I'm still trying to make sense out of those photos. The other is a broader and more personal essay-like study on men of my generation. However, for the next couple of months I’m also working as a staff photographer for Aamulehti, which is the second largest newspaper in Finland, so I won’t be able to work much on these projects right at the moment.

2. What inspires your creative work now?

I’m a typical Finn so very often my inspiration derives from anxiety and sheer envy towards those more talented than myself. It’s a very unhealthy and unproductive way to push yourself forward, but so far it has helped me to pursue my photography.

3. How did you choose photography as your creative metier?

I didn’t choose photography as such. I started studying journalism and worked in newspapers. I could appreciate beautiful, dramatic and clever pictures especially in the context of journalism, but at that point I couldn’t even dream of taking such photos myself. When I finally bought my own first camera, which was relatively late, in my early twenties, it infested me like a disease. I didn’t want to write anymore, writing didn’t motivate me to push forward like photography. Nothing did, really.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your photography style?

Actually, I’m not even sure I have a coherent style just yet, I think I’m only beginning to recognise what my style could be. This is something that should be asked from Elina, my girlfriend and mother of my child.

Since the beginning of my photographic pursuits she's been there encouraging but also judging quite harshly when necessary. You know ~ a slap on the face to get me back on track. I still feel the need to show her everything I've done immediately to see what she thinks about it. I think she knows what my style is way better than I do.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work technically?

Technically the most challenging thing for me is to not think about the technicalities at all. To let go of the technology, not to think about apertures and focal lengths and flashes and what not. They’re not important. What is important is what you’re taking photos of, not with what you’re doing it. 

For the past year or so I've been very tired of shooting with my DSLR aside from work. It's just too huge and intimidating. I bought a small mirror less camera and I have it with my everywhere I go and it's brilliant, nobody gets scared of it and nobody thinks I'm other than tourist. And the best thing is that I don't think about the technicalities at all! It really has rekindled my photography, same as Instagram, I guess.

6. What do you like to photograph?

People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?

Since I’m Scandinavian, I’ve tried to organise my creativity. I’ve tried keeping diaries, I’ve promised myself to shoot everyday and so on. So far nothing has really worked. I cannot force it. I think the most important thing is to keep your self somehow inspired everyday. Watch a movie, eye through some photos, analyse illustrations or just listen to music and try to enjoy it.

8.What part of photography gives you the most happiness and do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?

I think that if someday I'll be able to be totally instinctive about my photography I could finally be satisfied with myself. Hopefully that never comes. Satisfaction will kill off the urge to push forward and my photography is always closely tied to being unsatisfied. A certain level of struggling is elementary for my progress. But to answer the question: my photography is instinctive at best but usually very rational.

9. Is there a town or place in the world you consider inspiring?

If we talk about street photography or similar, Finland is a difficult country to work in. People are so reserved and they don't show too much emotion (or anything else, for that matter). That's why I really enjoy Rome, for example. People are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn.

10. In our digital age what is the relationship between photography and contemporary art?

I try not to bother myself with questions such as what is art and what is not – especially when it comes to my own work. Even though my photos have been exhibited in galleries and museums, I consider myself to be a journalist, not an artist. I most certainly have nothing against art photography and I am very pleased if someone thinks that my photos are interesting enough when considered in the context of art. However, I'm just not keen on making that distinction myself. With the 11 collective we've been very eager to mix and mess with the concept of art and concept of documentary and I intend to keep pushing those boundaries in the future. 

For more information about Konsta Leppänen visit: http://konstakuva.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The 11 Collective won the Patricia Seppälä Photojournalism Award in March 2013, the biggest prize in Finnish photojournalism. Konsta Leppänen is at the far right.

A photograph from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more, an essay about Finns' relationship with their surroundings. It was shot around Finland during 2011 - 2012.

Another picture from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more about Finns and their environment. 

Looking like a group of medieval saxons, Leppänen's photograph of the Finnish band Death Hawks taken in 2013

A photograph from the Rome series taken in 2011: "I really enjoy Rome ~ people are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn."

 Finland's young Artist of the Year Jarno Vasala, photographed for Finnish Art Today magazine in 2013.

Another picture of Jarno Vasala, the young artist of the year for Finnish Art Today magazine shot in 2013.

A large man in a tiny Fiat 500 from Leppänen's series on Rome.

A plane caught in flight with a dynamic conflagration of birds and a street light. 

An evocative picture simply titled Hangover 2012.

From the Collective 11's 3.6 meters or more essay about Finnish society and landscape. 

Leppänen's photograph of a girl from a story on Finnish dental care taken in 2013

Wes Anderson's New Short Film Premieres at Rome Film Festival

Actor Jason Schwartzman with director Wes Anderson and producer Roman Coppola at the premiere of Castello Cavalcanti listening to the Italian being translated in real time. 

American director Wes Anderson's new short film Castello Cavalcanti starring Jason Schwartzman and produced by Roman Coppola opens at the Rome International Film Festival,  Jeanne-Marie Cilento reports

WEARING a black velvet suit, pink shirt and knitted tie, a genial Wes Anderson talked about his new film Castello Cavalcanti commissioned by the Italian fashion house Prada. Anderson worked again with his long-time collaborator Jason Schwartzman and co-producer Roman Coppola. A strong camaraderie exists between the three men as Schwartzman is not only a favoured muse of Anderson but Roman Coppola's cousin.

In a playful mood, the Americans gently mocked the officious Italian moderator at the film premiere and press conference but entranced an appreciative audience of film directors, actors and Roman cinephiles with their relaxed discussions of their films and obvious enjoyment of the Eternal City. Wes Anderson said he and Roman Coppola had been working on the script for his last feature film Moonrise Kingdom for a year separately before they came to Italy for six weeks and finished it together. 

Both directors said they loved Italian films from the 1950s and 60s but also enjoyed the films of contemporary Italian directors such as Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza, Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah and the work of Nani Moretti and Luca Guadagnino.

Anderson said the highly stylised and light-hearted Castello Cavalcanti was inspired after a viewing of Federico Fellini’s Amarcord with Schwartzman. Set at night in a small Italian town around a typical piazza, the eight-minute film is a throwback to classic Italian cinema and follows Formula One racer Jed Cavalcanti during the Molte Miglia rally in September 1955.

After crashing his car, Jed meets the Italians who are playing cards in the piazza and realises they are his distant relatives, including a great, great uncle called Michelangelo. Jason Schwartzman’s mobile and humorous face is just right to depict the glib racing driver Jed Cavalcanti. Wrecking his car in his family's ancestral village and dressed in a yellow Prada jumpsuit, Jed is forced to continue to mingle with the locals while waiting on a bus to Assisi.

Jed flirts with the bored waitress at the bar, drinks a fierce green grappa, orders a bowl of spaghetti and decides to forego catching the next bus out of the town. The film is a fizzy aperitivo to whet the appetite of Wes Anderson fans before his new feature film is released in March. This is the second collaboration Anderson has made with Prada. In April, the filmmaker directed Prada Candy, another short featuring Blue Is the Warmest Colour actress Léa Seydoux.

At the Rome press conference, Wes Anderson discussed his most noted films including The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited and talked about Moonrise Kingdom which opened the Cannes Film Festival last year and earned him another Academy Award nomination for the screenplay.

Anderson’s next film and eighth feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel again stars regular collaborators Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman along with Ralph Fiennes and Jude Law. The director explained how the film takes place in late 1920s Europe and tells the story of hotel concierge Mr. Gustave. The Grand Budapest Hotel will premiere at next February's Berlin International Film Festival.

Press play to view the new short film Castello Cavalcanti by Wes Anderson starring Jason Schwartzman:

American director and producer Roman Coppola with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman on the red carpet at the Rome International Film Festival. 

A scene from the film showing racing driver Jed Cavalcanti escaping from his crashed vehicle. 

Actor Jason Schwartzman as Jed Cavalcanti on the phone reporting his crash to his girlfriend in Assisi. 

The film is set in Italy in September 1955 during the Molte Miglia rally.

The Prada film poster for Wes Anderson's Castello Cavalcanti

A Fashion Arab Spring: Designer Sasha Nassar's Collection SS14

Sasha Nassar's award-winning collection explores contemporary cultural conflicts in Islamic and Western societies by layering Muslim and Western motifs and by both veiling and revealing the female form with lacy, semi-transparent interpretations of the burqa.  

Limor Helfgott interviews Arab-Israeli designer Sasha Nassar who presented her first capsule collection at London and Paris fashion weeks for Spring Summer 2014. The young designer won this year’s International Womenswear Award at London Graduate Fashion Week. Photographs by Patrice Stable

A native of Jaffa, one of the oldest parts of Tel Aviv where Arabs and Jews live together, Sasha Nassar's collection was inspired by her own life living in a Western oriented Muslim-Jewish home. She feels deeply affected by the intolerance and superstition surrounding women's rights in the Islamic world. “The collection is about my life,” says Nassar. "I grew up in an Arab home and had a Western education. I am obsessed with what is currently happening in the Middle East and especially the revolutions of the Arab Spring."

The theme for her collection Le Printemps Arabe came from the idea of women in the Islamic world being hidden behind their burqas and not allowed to speak their minds. "I came up with the idea of creating a see-through burqa, without sleeves, in order to show women's lack of freedom,’’ Nassar explains. “I wanted the collection to be Western but keep the Islamic cultural origin with the prints."

Gauzy floral lace and geometric patterns in black and white are used with skill and delicate harmony by Nassar to create an original first collection which moves from the simple to the sensual, from exposure to concealment and combines both Muslim and Western elements.

Winning the best womenswear award launched Nassar’s career in Europe. The judges including Vogue Italia’s Sara Maino, co-founder of London Fashion Week and Wendy Dagworthy, head of fashion at The Royal College of Art, commended Nassar for exploring contemporary Islamic and Western societies by layering Muslim and occidental motifs and by both veiling and revealing the female form with lacy, semi-transparent interpretations of the burqa.  

One of the incidents that touched Nassar the most were the riots against women following the controversial movie Persepolis. The French-Iranian animation feature is based on an auto-biographical, graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. The story is told from the point of view of the author as a ten-year old girl, forced to wear a veil to school by those that called for a cultural revolution in Iran.

Nassar’s own journey as a designer started in Milan just four years ago. She had always dreamt of living in Italy so it was only natural to pursue her design studies at the Milan branch of the fashion school Istituto Marangoni. However, life in the Italian fashion capital was more difficult than she expected and after becoming ill she relocated to London where her brother lives and continued her studies at the school's British campus. But after the second year of her course in London, the designer’s doubts about her career choice returned. "I started thinking about what is going to happen to me after I graduate, I was afraid I was investing my time and effort for nothing." So she decided to take a year off and return to live in Israel.

Looking back, she says this 12 month break only did her good and made her miss the creativity of studying fashion. Wanting to resume her studies in London, she approached the British branch of Instituto Marangoni only to discover they could not take her back as the school had changed its academic status. Instead, the institute offered her a place for her last year at its Paris campus. Here she was again, alone in a city she had never visited before with a new language to learn and a new to class to fit into that had already spent two years together. Hard as it was at the beginning, Nassar says it was a good experience studying in three great fashion cities and taking something different from each one.

It was in Paris that her Arab Spring collection was born. "We received a general theme for the graduation project: Spring which immediately gave me the inspiration for my collection," explains Nassar. Despite her mentors at the Istituto Marangoni wanting her to change her designs, Nassar refused and stuck to her belief in the project and was ultimately rewarded by winning her highly-coveted award during London Graduate Fashion Week.

Nassar would like to create her own label, but is not planning to start now. "I don’t think it's right. I am still not ready, " she says modestly. "I want to work in a big fashion house in Europe so I can understand more about how the fashion world really works. I think that only after I gain this experience working on an international level can I start something of my own, perhaps something different."

Nassar is very connected to Jaffa where she grew up with her family. "They give me strength," she says. “Ultimately I want to come back home and work there. I would like to receive more experience in Europe and then be based in my home town, right there by the sea. That is my dream."

Sasha Nassar’s first capsule collection will be available later this year as Sasha Nassar by Muuse, the online design retailer that sponsored her shows in Paris and London.

Fashion designer Sasha Nassar was brought up in Jaffa, one of the oldest parts of Tel Aviv where Arabs and Jews live together. Her collection was inspired by her own life living in a Western oriented Muslim-Jewish home. Photograph by Jan Joseph Cohen

 "I came up with the idea of creating a see-though burqa, without sleeves, in order to show women's lack of freedom,’’ Nassar explains. 

Gauzy floral lace and geometric patterns in black and white are used with skill and delicate harmony by Nassar to create an original first collection which moves from the naive to the sensual, from exposure to concealment, combining both Muslim and Western elements.

It was in Paris that Sasha Nassar's Arab Spring collection was born. "We received a general theme for the graduation project: "Spring" which immediately gave me the inspiration for my collection," she explains.

Despite her mentors at the Istituto Marangoni wanting her to change her collection, Nassar refused and stuck to her belief in the project and was ultimately rewarded by winning the highly-coveted womenswear award during London Graduate Fashion Week.

Nassar's collection first shown at London Graduate Fashion Week took the audience and the high-profile judges on a unique journey from the inside of a burqa, seeing through the eyes of a Muslim woman and her role in cultural conflict.

Photo Essay: Norway ~ Architecture for a Dreamland

The reflective waters of Norway's Sognefjord is like a fairytale landscape of green mountains, clear lakes and picturesque villages. 

Travelling through Norway’s fjords and glaciers, Andreas Romagnoli captures this mysterious northern landscape and the country’s famous ancient churches and stark new architecture 

NORWAY'S landscape merges the grey-brown colors of winter with the green of spring and the ethereal blue of its lakes. The countryside’s scarce population make great stretches seem like uninhabited lands, where every journey represents a metaphorical journey within ourselves, exploring our fears and dreams.

But it is the architecture of Norway that captures the country’s response to changing cultural, climactic and economic conditions. International architectural influences are often apparent in Norwegian design but they are adapted to meet the local climate including the difficult winters and high winds. During the 20^th century, the architecture has been determined mostly by Norwegian social policy and its focus on innovation.

The history of Norway differs from other European countries in never adopting feudalism and maintaining its traditional ways of farming. Combined with the prevalent use of wood as a building material, this ensured the country has few examples of the elaborate baroque, renaissance or rococo styles built by the ruling classes in the rest of Europe.

Much of Norway’s vernacular architecture has been preserved on farms in open-air museums that show buildings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century such as the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo and Maihaugen in Lillehammer.

Today, Norway is also the only country in Northern Europe with intact wooden churches from the Middle Ages. While stone cathedrals were being built across Europe, Norway continued building in wood. From the period of the Vikings, Norwegians worked with wood for boats and buildings. This tradition culminated in the stave churches.

These wooden churches are an important part of Norwegian architectural heritage and the oldest is Urnes Stave church in Luster by the Sognefjord. A church has been on the site since 1130 and the current building dates to the 17th century. The builders were aware of international trends in architecture but used wood instead of stone to create the new forms. The interior of the church is richly decorated with animal motifs such as elks and doves as well as centaurs and dragons. This decoration has become known as the Urnes style and it is the only stave church on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Oslo's Opera House built in 2008 is representative of the contemporary Norwegian aesthetic where glass and brick has replaced wood. Designed by Snøhetta architects, the Opera House is the place where Norwegians come to enjoy both the performances inside and the vast marble rooftop where they can contemplate their city and harbour and view the cluster of cranes soaring above new buildings.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Grasses and hardy plants grow amid the lands surrounding a solitary wooden house in Eidfjord. 

Lighthouse on the coast at Krakenes.

Trollstigen or Troll's Road is a surreal landscape of undulating rocks and grasses.

Bergen's beautiful waterside promenade with it's traditional gabled buildings.

Bergen's imposing 19th century buildings are a mix of wood, stone and brick.

Alesund's apartments cluster around the water with boats moored virtually at the doorstep.

The famous Urnes Stavrchirchen from the 17th century and the oldest wooden church surviving in Europe today

Once a private church for a powerful family, the original builders were aware of international trends in architecture but used wood instead of stone.

This is the Stavrchirchen in Flam looking like a religious Ginger Bread house.

A masterclass in woodwork, the Norwegian traditonal churches go back to the Middle Ages. 

Two girls sitting on the vast marble rooftop of  the Oslo Opera House, contemplate the new construction going up around them.

The Oslo Opera House with it's marble roof terraces where Norwegians can stroll, skate and enjoy the harbour.

Snøhetta architects wanted the art, material, form, landscape and people to be united in the Opera House project. They worked with artists Jarunn Sannes, Kristian Blystad, and Kalle Grude to create the roof as a piece of public art. 

A girl plays on the Opera House's terraces. At 20,000 square meters, the marble roof is made from about 30,000 different stone pieces. 

Italian Street Artist Agostino Iacurci Paints a New Mural in Rome

Agostino Iacurci working on his giant new mural on the side of a building on the corner of Via Aquilonia and Via Teano in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci worked on a colossal new mural in Rome as part of Wunderkammern Gallery’s Public and Confidential project, write Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento. He is photographed while painting from a cherry-picker to reach the upper echelons of his giant figures.

DARK stormy skies hover above us when we meet Iacurci working on his new mural in the eastern part of Rome in Prenestino. While the artist still looks like a teenager under his hard-hat, he first started graffiti painting in 1998 when he was twelve years old. 

Born in Foggia in southern Italy in1986, Iacurci has already worked across a diverse range of artistic mediums from murals to illustrating books and painting for gallery exhibitions. His wall murals are even found adding an element of colourful whimsy to Rome’s maximum security prison. 

Iacurci paints figures enlarged to an enormous scale to create his outdoor murals. His storybook characters adapt to the contours of a building’s surface whether it's an apartment building or prison yard. One of the most important influences on the young artist was the work of Italian painter Bruno Munari who also worked with a style that emphasised geometric shapes and bold colour. Iacurci says that another of his main influences is Otto Dix and that he aims to a create a certain serenity and a sense of the future with is massive figures.

Iacurci's work in Rome can be seen in the international context of his projects that now stretch from Moscow to Paris. And his paintings, drawings and etchings have been presented at exhibitions and festivals in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Since 2008, the artist has made huge murals in public spaces for Roma Tre University, Fubon Art Foundation in Taipei, the Fine Art Academy of Rome, the University Campus of Besançon in France, the Saba School in Algeria and ~ together with the inmates ~ two massive works on the walls of the maximum security zone of Rebibbia prison.

Today, Iacurci's art and mural paintings are sought-after all over the world. His new piece in Rome of two bowler-hatted men is a monumental addition to the Eternal City and adds irony and colour to the urban landscape. The artist will have a solo exhibition at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome in early 2014. The show is part of the Public and Confidential series that began earlier this year. It examines how urban art and street artists interact with the public and the city. 

Visit Wunderkammern Gallery for further information on current and upcoming shows and events in Rome: wunderkammern.net

The completed mural at 28 metres tall and 18 metres wide

The artists ascends on a cherry-picker to continue painting his enormous bowler-hattted men. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

A view of Iacurci's new work in progress in Rome's Prenestino district. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

The young artist comes back down to ground to mix the colours for his new mural. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

An amusing mural in Via del Porto Fluviale in Rome ~ the painting cleverly incorporates the building's windows in the design.

Called Siamese,  this mural is in London's Camden and was a collaboration with Urban Outfitters earlier this year.

A mural painted for Le Mur in Paris this year.

An three by two metre art work made for an urban art exhibition in the Circo Massimo in Rome. 

Called Grafts,  this nine by two metre piece was made for the Venice Bienale in Campo Sant´Agnese.  Detail below. 

Murals made with the students of the Saba School in Algeria

Created for Arte Urbana in Lugano at Via Lavizzari, 5

Created during the LGZ festival and curated by Street Kit in Moscow, Russia

Murals made for Rebibbia prison's On the Wall project. Created in collaboration with a group of 15 inmates on the courtyard's walls, in the maximum security section.

Detail of the Rome prison's mural created by Agostino Iacurci

Mural in Via Lugaro in Turin, Italy

Illustration for the novel "La Finta Nonna" in "Fiabe Italiane" by Italo Calvino. Created for Fiabe dello stivale, International group show

Murals painted for the Univerisity Campus of Besançon in France