2018 Northern Photographic Centre, Oulu, FINLAND
4.8.- 2.9.2018.
Photo exhibition ‘Silent Stories of Land’. Artists Naoko Chiba and Antti Ylönen. Producer and writer Kaisa Kerätär.
Background for the exhibition: “The Tohoku region, located in the northernmost part of Japan’s Honshu island, shares many similarities in terms of history and culture with the sparsely populated areas in northern Finland. Japan and Finland also seem to have a similar societal structure divided into two regions: the prosperous south and the raw material reserve of the north.
Photographer Naoko Chiba and visual artist Antti Ylönen first met in 2015 while participating in an art project in Fukushima, Tōhoku. Their artwork explores the different layers of time and how the history and social background of the Tohoku region continue to affect the present. They also research the remnants of the lost indigenous culture and the effects of modernization on the region.
2023 Gallery Kobo Chika, Tokyo, JAPAN
1.-15.10.2023
Photo exhibition ‘Dialogue with Land’. Photographers Naoko Chiba and Antti Ylönen. Writer Kaisa Kerätär.
Background for the exhibition: ‘Dialogue with Land‘ exhibition, is assembled of stories that connect the place, the environment, as well as the physical and spiritual life of local people amid changes due to modernization.
Naoko Chiba’s exhibited her serie of photographs called Seaside Town, a work for which she repeatedly visited Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, to experience the local culture, talk to residents, and photograph the area for seven years following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
Antti Ylönen has observed and photographed decay and decomposition in the built environment in Japan and Europe.
Kaisa Kerätär exhibited fragments from a series of essays that she has named Survival Stories. The stories were illustrated with photos from her homeland in Eastern Lapland in Finland.
Video: Artist talk at Gallery Kobo Chika on the 7th of October 2023 (duration 1h11min).
Upcoming exhibitions: ‘Rajamaat’ 2026 touring photo exhibition in FINLAND by Naoko Chiba and Antti Ylönen.
