"Oporornis formosus"

Kentucky warbler, North Amerika

pigmentbased inkjet print on aluminium

signed, titled, dated and numbered on verso

Natural Beauty
For more than two decades the Finnish photographer Sanna Kannisto has been observing nature and its special manifestations. Her photographic works explore the interfaces between nature, science and art. In remote places, such as the rain forest of French Guiana or the mountains of Ecuador, she looks for the special features of the flora and fauna. Using the working methods of science, the photographer analyzes and archives the wide variety of species in all their diversity. And so she takes a “field studio” with her into the wilderness, to capture the actors of nature at the moment of her shot. For this purpose, she places a small, net-like cage with a white background into the landscape. Rare species of birds, orchids, frogs and many other creatures and plants then enter this stage. Kannisto always finds them directly on site and after their brief performance in front of the camera, she releases them into the natural world again, undamaged. But in the photos not only the actors themselves can be seen but also parts of the cage, the array for experiments and investigations. While taking her photos, Kannisto studies the behavior and appearance of the little birds, in the present case a Kentucky warbler from the yellowthroat genus, while it studies the photographer in turn: “Being with a bird is utterly unique, it’s moving. I look at the bird and it looks at me. For a moment we have some kind of shared thought. It’s kind of a mutual examination.”¹

Sanna Kannisto’s pictures are an admonition to take biodiversity and climate change seriously. Kannisto was born in H.meenlinna, Finland, in 1974. She lives and works in Helsinki. Kannisto completed her training at Aalto University – School of Arts, Design and Architecture and is thus one of the pioneer artists of the Helsinki School, a prominent group of photographers from this university.
(Christoph Fuchs, pubished in Eikon, #117, 2022)

[1] See helsinkischool.fi/artists/sanna-kannisto?x=bio, last accessed on December 19, 2021.