Tiramisu (2020-2021)
The term Tiramisu can be understood as a pick-me up or cheer me up. Visual stanzas gathered into a multi-narrative piece that’s a testament to connecting with those closest to our living space, and what can be accomplished as a team between wit, spontaneity and action. Friends, roommates and neighbours. What’s closest to home, the opposite of the photographer’s obsession to exoticize - fellow foreigners that convene in the familiar feeling of being somewhere new. Covid-19 and the stark winter darkness of the 60th degree. Exploring via dialectic, with emphasis on the collaborative process where the subjects provide ideas on where and how to be photographed; casting aside the dictatorial picture-maker; a wolf leading from behind. Members of the Chinese student community in Espoo, Finland, aiming at subverting stereotypical categorizations of what’s typically viewed in the media and a chance at writing their own tale. The undertaking itself as a healthy social support system that culminates into a document that’s situated between fact and fiction - sporadically implementing a collective imagination that shapes experience, interconnectivity and memory.
A familiar life ritual at a crossroads of larger global phenomena. An opportunity to knock at the neighbour’s room and showcase the thrill of togetherness; a simplicity slowly dissipating via virtual hyperconnectivity. A chance to reimagine quotidian surroundings, the stairs used weekly to do the laundry, the bed that’s slept on, the expressions that are manifested after a profound statement or an embarrassing instant. Sitting at the common room table, sharing home-cooked meals, continuing the evenings’ gathering by placing the mirror uncannily in an attempt to reveal something new.