Interview: 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 photographer from Finland, a member of the 11 Collective and he has won the biggest Finnish photojournalism prize, 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

New Interview: Illustrator Dana Avni and the Blue Oranges

"I don’t think you can choose to be creative, it chooses you,” says illustrator Dana Avni. Pictured is above are her drawings showing her signature sure line and use of vivid blocks of colour.

Our fashion correspondent in London, Limor Helfgott, speaks to talented young illustrator Dana Avni about her new work, studies and plans for the future


Illustrator Dana Avni. Photo by Amit Shlomovich 

 “I don’t think you can choose to be creative, it chooses you,” says Dana Avni talking about how she began her career. Although born in the Israeli city of Haifa, when she was five years old her family moved to Zichron Ya'akov, a quiet town located in the Carmel mountains. Thinking of that time, she remembers herself always painting and drawing.

Avni describes how a childhood incident made her understand how she was always determined to find her own way creatively, even from a very young age. When she was at kindergarten, her teacher handed out white pages with a stencil of an orange tree, a variety of coloured chalks, and asked the children to draw. All of the other children coloured the oranges in orange, but little Dana painted them blue.



Avni captures creates movement and emotion in her drawings

The kindergarten teacher wasn’t happy and as a punishment locked Dana away in the bathroom for the day. Dana had "ammunition" with her: a considerable number of colourful chalks. So she spent the time drawing on the walls, creating her own world in the small room.

Looking back, the young illustrator says that experience didn’t deter her. The teacher surely was better off letting her paint the oranges blue rather than having to repaint the bathroom walls, but for Dana it was an early realisation that no one could stop her from creating in the way she wanted to.



A light-hearted thread of humour runs through Avni's work 

Today, Avni still likes to be experimental with her work and illustrations. She has found sharing her work on social media like Instagram has been a positive way of exhibiting new drawings, receiving feedback and has also allowed her to meet more people that have contributed to her career.

Currently studying visual communication at Minshar, School of Arts in Tel Aviv, Avni is completing her fourth and final year. She has also started her own business with her partner, Hen Lazimi, also a visual communication student at a different school. They are creating new sketchbook covers and have big plans for the future: “This is only the beginning,” she promises, “There is much more to come”.



Whimsy and good drawing enhance Avni's illustrations

Their current studio at home is cluttered with a variety of stickers, pencil cases, all sorts of writing tools and of course a never-ending range of blank pages to draw and paint on. “My work can happen anywhere,” says Dana. “It can be on the table or even quite a lot on the floor.”  Her creative process begins with her intuition, but then her rational side takes over to bring the drawing to fruition.

 Avni likes to post her new work on social media

Avni wants to improve constantly and create new work. When I ask her if anybody in particular made an impact on her, Dana says she can’t point out anyone specific because her influences are a mix of everything: “Different people, places, experiences, frustrations and success have affected my work which is very dynamic. I don't feel like I belong in a niche."
And what are the plans for the future? Dana and her partner are now planning to move to Berlin this year, to start a new creative life there. One thing is certain, whatever happens, she will always remember the blue oranges, where it all started. 

New Interview: Christian Lacroix's Creative Director Sacha Walckhoff

 “My design for Moooi is called the Jewels Garden,”  (pictured above) says Sacha Walckhoff. “I wanted to create a rug that looks like a psychedelic garden, using all of the Lacroix symbols from the house’s years of couture." 

Christian Lacroix’s exuberant Creative Director, Sacha Walckhoff, talks to Jeanne-Marie Cilento about his life in Paris, his new work and designs for Dutch powerhouse Moooi. Portrait by Mariangela Curci

WALKING into the dark, cavernous entrance of the monumental Moooi show in Milan you are immediately struck by the golden, jewel tones of Sacha Walckhoff’s enormous carpet hanging like a painting in all of it’s rich-hued glory. The designer is a baroque minimalist at heart and has brought all of his skill to Maison Christian Lacroix since he took over as creative director in 2009.

 

Sacha Walckhoff talks to Marcel Wanders at the Moooi exhibition.

Arriving at the Moooi exhibition, directly from a flight from Paris, Sacha Walckhoff is unruffled and full of energy and enthusiasm. Tall and elegant, he wears a simple dark vest and shirt, the only nod to his maximalist aesthetic a dash of red across his polished, black leather brogues.“My design for Moooi is called the Jewels Garden,” he says. “I wanted to create a rug that looks like a psychedelic garden, using all of the Lacroix symbols.We took jewel designs from the house’s years of couture and we put them into the garden like flowers. In the end, it looks both cosmic and precious. I wanted to do something that was easy to use too, like a Persian rug, but at the same time modern and fresh."

Sacha Walckhoff’s new design is part of a large new collection launched by Moooi during Milan Design Week of 48 surreal designs created by visual artists, couturiers and designers, including Ross Lovegrove, Studio Job, Front, Klaus Haapaniemi, Jurgen Bey and Moooi co-founder and creative director Marcel Wanders.

The 3D effect of Broersen & Lukacs' Liquid Maple design for Moooi

The Moooi carpets use a new technology that creates super high definition prints with startling photo realistic effects. The carpets can have an infinite combination of colours and tones, creating an unusual sense of depth. The exhibition in Milan showed the Signature carpets range including Jacquard carpets designed by Wanders to give the impression that the flat woven designs of 3D images seem carved into the carpets.

Although Sacha Walckhoff designs under his own name too, he spends most of his time overseeing all of the collections at Lacroix from the mens collections to the homewares. Since 2010, he has been the designer for the men’s prêt-à-porter, eye wear and sunglasses lines, scarves, and leather goods, as well as the home décor line.

“I have kept the Christian Lacroix aesthetic, like colours and a sense of joie de vivre,” he says. “Of course, we update everything and now all the designs we are doing are done by my studio and they are totally fresh and new. It is not from the archives but is created for today’s life.”

Books inspire the designer. Photo by Elodie Depuis

These days he could be designing a jacket in the morning, a chair in the afternoon and a bed at night but he says he enjoys designing across different disciplines. “I love fashion and product design equally,” he explains. “I am always trying to have a bit of fun! And to make something that makes life easier and more enjoyable that is attractive to other people and to me too ~ I am my first client. I like every part of the design process: from first having an idea to convincing people to make that idea real and meeting the artisans who are going to create it. Often you ask them to do things they have never done and they say it is impossible. But then they find a way to do it and the artisans have a sparkle in their eyes because they did something they never thought they could do. All of those little processes I love."

Sacha Walckhoff says that as the creative director of Lacroix his process of coming up with new ideas is very fluid, not like a nine-to-five job. “My inspiration comes from all around me, seeing people in the street, from exhibitions and galleries, artists and especially antique books as you see things that you haven’t seen before because they are out of print. All of those things are important for my creativity.”



Sacha Walckhoff at home in Paris. Photo by Elodie Depuis

Passionate about art, design and decoration, Sacha’s own apartment in Paris is an atmospheric place filled with his own collection of pieces. “Designing my apartment in Paris, I just buy things and put them together,” he says. “Sometimes it doesn’t work so I try putting pieces in different places and suddenly I think it works together. It is a question of space and colours. The eye has to travel and be attracted to one point and then another and go all around the apartment.”

Although he was born in France, Sacha Walckhoff spent most of his childhood in Switzerland. After studying at the School of Barcelona Arts and Fashion Techniques, he first worked at fashion houses including Jean Rémy Daumas, Dorothée Bis and Michel Klein. By 1992, he had met Christian Lacroix and was soon to become his artistic consultant. Initially he was in charge of the prêt-à-porter lines and then he was appointed Studio Director in 1996.



Christian Lacroix Menswear Collection SS2015

Sacha Walckhoff became the couturier’s right-hand man in 2002, when he created his own company. At the same time, he was also a consultant for Kenzo and Jean-Claude Jitrois. He didn’t imagine at the start of his collaboration with Christain Lacroix, that it would last 17 years and that then he would take over as creative director. But it has been the perfect fit for him creatively.

“I’m a mix and match so I was meant to be at Lacroix: I’m a bit Russian, a bit French, a bit African and educated in Switzerland,” he says today. “So I have all of this Russian and African craziness and baroqueness and at the same time I have the strength of the Swiss people and their seriousness. So I am mix of all of those things. Often I say, I am a baroque minimalist and I think it is really a definition of my work.”



Fur Play by Sacha Walckhoff' with Pouenet & Terzakou for Galerie Gosserez

Although he believes, great design can evoke the same feelings as a piece of art, he doesn’t see design necessarily as an art form. “We are great artisans and we try to make life better but at the same time there isn’t a message behind every design we are doing," he says. "Normally when an artist is working, it is very expressionistic with strong things to say.

“I wouldn’t say this is this case for most designs. As designers we have the commercial aspect where we have to sell too. Sometimes you have to adjust designs to make them more saleable or adjust it for the price. Today, we are also managers not only designers, you cannot just be a designer you have to think of all of the different parts to make the product affordable. But design does give us pleasure and can make life better. When you have a table and chair you love and that gives you happiness ~ at that level design is like art.”



 Christian Lacroix Nouveaux Mondes Collection Spring/Summer 2015 

Talking about the future of Christian Lacroix,  Sacha Walckhoff says the fashion house will stick to menswear and accessories but develop more aspects of  the lifestyle collections including furniture: “I think that Chistian Lacroix is perfect for that."  With his fluent creativity and talent for working with other people, this French house continues to produce captivatingly vivid and ebullient design, retaining the Lacroix aesthetic but bringing a contemporary edge to new collections.

Interview: Artist Princess Niké Arrighi Borghese talks about her life and work in Rome, Italy

Princess Niké Arrighi Borghese painting at her 16th Century home the Palazzo Borghese in Artena, near Rome: "I work sporadically, anywhere and anytime, on any piece of paper I find. Sometimes I am so attracted by something that it’s like falling in love." 

Princess Niké Arrighi Borghese began her career as an actress working with New Wave directors like Francois Truffaut, Ken Russell and Jean-Luc Godard before she went on to become a successful artist. Her recent exhibitions in Australia and Singapore include vividly-coloured paintings, subtle drawings & fine etchings of Rome and Venice, Jeanne-Marie Cilento reports

NIKE Arrighi Borghese’s work is full of both poetry and a sense of drama and reflect her own delicacy in person and natural vivacity. Her twinkling eyes appear interested in everything around her and she is passionate about her work: she paints and draws at her home the 16th Century Palazzo Borghese in Artena not far from Rome.

Born in France but brought up in Australia, Niké married her childhood love, racing car driver, sailor and accomplished engineer, the late Prince Paolo Borghese, in Hong Kong before returning to the family property in Italy. The Borghese are one of the most illustrious aristocratic families in Italy and include a Renaissance pope and several cardinals in their lineage. Camillo Borghese became the powerful Pope Paul V in 1605 and his nephew Cardinal Scipione Borghese was a patron of Bernini. During this period, the Borghese family also became some of the largest landowners of the countryside around Rome.

Niké was born in Nice to an Italian father, diplomat and artist, Ernesto Arrighi, and an Australian mother Eleanora Cox. She grew up in Sydney’s Vaucluse while her father was Italian consul. She studied art at school with one of Australia’s most renowned artists Justin O’Brien. Creativity runs in her family, not only did her father paint and play violin but her mother was related to both the writer Patrick White and architect Philip Cox and her sister Luciana Arrighi became the Academy Award-Winning costume designer.

After her schooling in Australia where she attended the Sacred Heart Convent at Elizabeth Bay, Niké travelled to Europe and began modelling for Balenciaga and Nina Ricci in Paris. She then went to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for the next 10 years in film, television and theatre. She worked with 1960s New Wave directors including Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Ken Russell.

By the 1970s, she had returned to her first love painting and drawing and became a full-time artist. In 1977, she married Prince Paolo Borghese in Hong Kong, where he was working as an engineer on large civic projects. She had her first solo show at Hong Kong's Quorum Gallery and won First Prize for Graphic Art at the 1976 Biennale at the Hong Kong Modern Art Museum.

After she returned to Italy in 1984, to live at the Palazzo Borghese with her husband and daughter Flavia, she continued to paint and exhibit at galleries around the world from Sydney to Tokyo and from Paris to Fez. In 2007, she finished her monumental and acclaimed panoramic 360°View of Rome, an enormous work of eight etchings and aquatints. 

She drew them by turning around on the one spot from the terrace of the Belgian Ambassador's residence in Rome. Among the most important awards for her work, are the Fiorino D'Oro that she won in 1995 and the Donna del Lazio prize for art by the President of the Lazio Region.

1. Where did you grow up and does this place still influence your artwork?
Although I was born in Nice, France, I was brought up in Australia, my mother’s homeland and had a natural, free, healthy childhood in Sydney with an artistic and cultural education and the influence of my mother and her life-long artist friends, such as Justin O’Brien and Jeffrey Smart.

They influenced me greatly and encouraged my work as an artist, patiently answering my constant queries: “Justy, Jeffrey how do I mix my turps? Do I stretch the canvas? What colour is best for a backing…?” And I’d go and watch them painting, Justy in Rome and Jeffrey in his bella casa in Tuscany, and I’d learn at a glance what would take an hour’s instruction!

2. You originally began studying art in Sydney, but went on to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became an actress. Why did you choose to return to painting, drawing and etching as your artistic métier?

Life is often not what you plan! After finishing school, my first wish was to study art, so I enrolled at the Sydney Tech and felt proud walking to class with my art folder. A month later, my sister and I sailed away to Europe. First I worked as a mannequin in Paris, then I studied dramatic art at RADA in London, followed by 10 years of acting in the theatre, films and TV, in London, Paris and Rome.

But art never left me, indeed I say that ‘art saved me from going crazy’…because as an actor you’re a ‘King’ one day and an outcast beggar the next. Very unsettling to live with, so during the long waits on film sets or waiting for my agent to ring, I drew and painted and felt happier. When I married my dear Paolo, in Hong Kong, my art flowered and so it was 'goodbye acting career'. 

3. What aspect of drawing and etching gives you the most happiness?
In Hong Kong I was fascinated by bamboo scaffolding, which was followed with a series of drawings and etchings on this subject. I was nominated "the Bamboo Scaffolding Artist” and won first prize at the Hong Kong Biennial. Bamboo scaffolding was a beautiful challenge for me and, as always, I fall in love with a subject that enchants me and then happiness follows. I once wrote on a water-colour sketch of some lychees: 'when I draw I love the world'.

4)  What do you find the most challenging part of your work?
Doing it.

5). Can you describe the experience, person or training that has

 had the greatest impact on your artistic career?
One important fact, which I understand now after many years of depicting Rome, with countless drawings, etchings and oils, is that I feel this must be a ‘gift’ from my father, Ernesto, who died when I was very little. He was a Roman, a diplomat and an artist, so my sister Luciana and I grew up with his pictures in the house.

Rome, Italy, remained in my psyche as a place of wonder and emotions. So when my husband and I returned to Italy to live, I began drawing life in Rome, and other parts of Italy, as if I were paying  tribute to my father’s city and country.

The great Piranesi has also constantly inspired me, so much so that when I started sketching Rome, I held the book of Piranesi’s etchings of Rome close to me to give me courage, but when I drove away to go home, I realized the Piranesi book had fallen off my car and was lost! At that, I understood that HE, the maestro, wanted me to ‘do it’ alone. 

6. Describe what your studio is like and whether you have a set schedule of working there everyday? Or is the process more fluid?

My studio is a mess! Whenever I gather courage to tidy it up, I become overwhelmed with the desire to paint! I work sporadically, anywhere and anytime, on any piece of paper I find. Sometimes I am so attracted by something that it’s like falling in love. When the ‘Broccolo Romano’ (see below) drew my attention, I sketched it and sketched it, for days buying more and more fresh ones… my poor husband had roman broccoli for every meal!

7). Do you find your creative process is more rational or

instinctive?
Instinctive, purely instinctive, as if I am told or helped by someone else to draw and paint.

8. How would you describe working as a contemporary artist

today in Italy?

Difficult to describe, working as a contemporary artist in Italy. I remember during a collective exhibition where I hung my Roman etchings, I went off to have a coffee and when I returned I saw a man looking intently at my etchings, he turned to me and asked “Where’s the artist?” I answered that I was the artist, and he immediately muttered ‘Oh, a woman!’ ~ lost interest and disappeared! Is it a fact that a female artist has less value than a male artist here? Italy inspires artists, but the business part is less inspiring.

9. Is there a particular town or place in the world you find

inspiring?
Well, I found Hong Kong very inspiring, exciting buildings, bamboo scaffolding, the port and Chinese life. Then I changed country and now live near Rome, so Italy became my ‘field’ of inspiration… the ancient with everyday life. Which is the most inspiring? Maybe I just absorb the place I’m in and then go on to the next...

10. In our digital age, what do painting and drawing give us as

art forms?

Yes, what do painting and drawing give us in this digital age? Painting and drawing – Art - is an expression of our inner soul, our creation, our being. It is an outlet for our creativity. I only need a pen or pencil to do this, I don’t need a machine. However, if you can do it with a computer, or bricks, or words or sounds, or on a machine, then ‘ben venga’, as they say in Italian: Go ahead!

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Ninfa Waterfall Oil on canvas 75 x 92cm  2012 

Sperlonga and the Buoys Oil on canvas 64 x 94cm  1995

Veduta di San Pietro Sepia etching/aquatint 42 x 60cm 1990 

Tempio di Vesta Rome Sepia etching/aquatint  45 x 60cm 1991 

Foro Romano Oil on canvas 35 x 50cm 2003 

Aretusa Silkscreen on paper  36 x 49cm  2003

Palazzo Ducale Venice Blue etching/aquatint  47 x 61cm 1997

Pescheria Venice Blue etching/aquatint  61 x 42cm 1997

Palazzo Sotto Restauro Venice Blue etching/aquatint 60 x 40cm 1997

Colonna Traiana Rome Sepia etching/aquatint 64 x 40cm 2013

Creation Etching 50 x 35cm 1978