Jyri Pitkänen: Luistelemassa

From the exhibition: Love Song
November 1st to 24th
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte

Jyri Pitkänen’s exhibition Love Song at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte explores themes of love, death, and letting go. For ten years, Pitkänen photographed the lives of his paralysed father and his mother, who acted as his caregiver. The exhibition offers an intimate glimpse into the couple’s repetitive daily routine built on trust.

When Pitkänen’s father became paralysed, he became dependent, and Pitkänen’s mother became his caregiver. Photography was a natural way to process the grief and the transformed daily life of his parents. During his visits, Pitkänen began to carry a camera with him. The thought that this might be the last chance to capture his parents’ lives and make them visible guided his photography. Farewells took on new shades of meaning: what if we don’t see each other again? One more picture, and then another. Goodbye for now, see you soon.

In the images of the Love Song exhibition, the artist’s father appears fragile and reliant on others, yet Pitkänen remembers him as a curious and independent adventurer. While photographing, he contemplated how his nearly speechless father might have felt when his wife woke him, lifted him, took him to the bathroom, washed, dressed, and fed him, changed his diapers, exercised him, helped him rest, and managed his medication. Did he anticipate the routines repeating, or did he hope for something different?

More about the artist: Jyri Pitkänen is a photographic artist based in Tallinn. His practice includes photography, moving images, music, and site-specific works. In his earlier projects, he has explored the lives of those living on the margins of society, the relationships between seeing and imagining, and themes of consumerism.