Sémiosquare Publishing / Finnish Photo Books and Book Art

		Finnish Photo Art – Finnish Book Art

	Finnish	Orders and contact

		Olli Oinas Occideia The Occident, antithesis of the Orient, means the West, lands of the setting sun. Occideia depicts one subject’s odyssey, a chimerical trek through a culture-moulded environment. Occideia is a story built up in small episodes. A story with a beginning and end, birth and death. Intermittent events and phenomena tell about us people and our culture. In his photographs, Olli Oinas focused on sequences of black and white images of everyday and unimportant places. The result was soul landscapes, where idea and visual highlighting together build the content and power of the image. The work Occideia by Olli Oinas (1948-2018) appears posthumously. The texts of the book have been selected from diary entries, where he considered the importance of art and culture in general and photography in particular. Languages: Finnish and English Size 17 x 22 cm Thread bound, hard covers 160 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-952-69062-1-8 Price €25 + shipping costs

		Sakari Viika Hotel Jugoslavija “I believe that you can see more in a photograph than what it represents. Hear the sounds of its surroundings, smell its scents, and feel the specific rhythm of a city. If you look deep enough, you can see the whole world in a single photograph.” It is these terms that Sakari Viika defines his relationship with photography and photographs. He photographed in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia on three occasions in 2014 and 2015, drawing his plans for photographing and routes in his notebook. Some of these drawings also found a place in the book “Hotel Jugoslavija”. One evening Sakari Viika took a picture through a bus window of the Hotel Jugoslavija, which had been closed for years. This picture was enough to give this book its name. In his preface to the book, Viika notes: “A hotel is a place for a traveller, an outsider, to stay. The outsider and wanderer is the photographer of the book, stumbling over subjects, peeking into courtyards at night, pausing on a bench to observe the moods of passers-by. It is the outsider’s prerogative to view places with untarnished eyes and no preconceptions. The result is a free-form portrait of a city. Not a likeness but recognisable.” Languages: Finnish, Serbian and English Size 24 x 32 cm Paperboard cover 96 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-952-69062-0-1 Price €38 + shipping costs

		Johnny Korkman Matkan varrelta / By the Way With an essay “Notes on a Certain Way of Life” by Antti Nylén On the back cover Johnny Korkman tells about his photographs: “I have always been fond of straight photography. My photographs bear witness to reality as it exists. Most of the pictures chosen for this book were taken on holidays, when my everyday photographic duties had eased up, and there were no more external orders telling me what to shoot and how. It has been a custom for me to carry my Leica camera with me everywhere, and whenever something has caught my eye, I’ve shot it. My photographs are black-and-white, and shot on black-and-white film as well. I wanted to keep the whole process, from shooting and film developing to making prints, in my own hands. Black-and-white film also set its limits on what I was able to do and what needed to be taken note of while shooting. The photos in this book are all from the 1980s and 1990s. It has always been a pleasure to look at them whenever a box of them has turned up. Now this book will serve as the box, into which the reader can also peek.” Languages: Finnish, English Size 21,5 x 25,5 cm Paperboard cover 64 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-9-8 Published in 2018 Print run 150 numbered copies Price €32, no shipping costs in Finland

		Martti Jämsä Kevät! (Spring!) This small book is like a collection of photographic poems about early spring in the woods near city of Helsinki. Original photographs, gelatin silver prints, were shown at the Photographic Gallery Hippolyte at Helsinki June 2017. Size 19,5 x 17,5 cm Paperboard cover 34 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-8-1 Published in 2017 Price €12 + shipping costs

		Jorma Hinkka Hommage à R. Mutt 1917–2017 Marcel Duchampin kolme pisoaaria ja 12 kopiota. (Marcel Duchamp’s three urinoires and twelve copies. The book tells the story of Marcel Duchamp’s famous Fountain from it’s creation at 1917 till 2004, when it was selected in England as the most influential modern work of art. The book is published only in Finnish. Size 14,8 x 21 cm Paperboard cover 48 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-7-4 Published in 2017 Price €18 + shipping costs

		Antero Takala Maisemasta mielenmaisemaan Elämäni kameran takana (From Landscape to Mindscape – My Life Behind the Camera) Richly illustrated autobiography by Antero Takala, photographer and pioneer of Finnish video art. The book is published only in Finnish. Size 17 x 21 cm Paperboard cover 118 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-6-7 Published in 2016 Out of print.

	The Finnish Book Art Committee awarded this book as one of the most beautiful books of the year 2015.	I. K. Inha Lähetyssaarnaaja (Missionary) A short novel by young I. K. Inha (1865–1930), a writer and pioneer of Finnish photography. Artist Martti Jämsä has illustrated the novel with ten rayographs. The novel is published only in Finnish. Size 14,8 x 21 cm Thread bound, hard covers 48 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-5-0 Published in 2015 Price €28 + shipping costs

	The Finnish Book Art Committee awarded this book as one of the most beautiful books of the year 2014.	Elina Brotherus 12 ans après / 12 vuotta myöhemmin / 12 years later “12 years ago I was here, not exactly in this room, but in one quite like it. Those were important times. I was treated like an artist, and that confirmed my future. I was 27 years old. I’m no longer the same person. I walk the streets of this city and remember next to nothing. I’m not nostalgic. My life is elsewhere. 12 years ago I was wondering if at last I was happy. It’s possible that I was, more than now. In any case, the question has grown vast and much more complex …” In 12 years later Elina Brotherus returns to autobiographical photography. She juxtaposes photographs she took in Chalon-sur-Saône in 1999 with new work made in the same surroundings 12 years later. The images of the two periods form a poignant dialogue, an intimate and warm study of memories, hope and disappointments. Riikka Ala-Harja’s short story, 10 years later, in counterpoint to Brotherus’ photographs, is based on Ala-Harja’s own experiences in France. Images and words meet in an enchanting way. The texts in the book are in French, Finnish and English. Size 25 x 32,5 cm Thread bound, paperboard covers 84 pages Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka ISBN 978-951-97491-4-3 Published in 2015 Price €38 + shipping costs MORE PAGES

		Stéphane Mallarmé Nopanheitto ei koskaan tuhoa Sattumaa Mallarmé's famous poem Un coup de Dés jamais n'abolira le Hasard (1897) in Finnish, translated by Helena Sinervo. Original French text is printed in the background. Size 25 x 32,5 cm Thread bound, paperboard covers 32 pages Translation and foreword: Helena Sinervo* Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka Languages: Finnish, poem also in French ISBN 978-951-97491-1-2 Published in 2014 Price €20 + shipping costs * The translation by Helena Sinervo was published 2006 by WSOY as Nopanheitto. Translation is published here by courtesy of WSOY.

		Martti Jämsä Sydän ja luoti / Heart and Bullet Included with the book is a silver-gelatin print of one of its pictures signed by Martti Jämsä. PASSPORT PHOTOS I found a small brown envelope containing black and white negatives in a box in my studio. The envelope was marked Lounais-Hämeen Kauppaoppilaitos 1977 (The Southwest Häme Region Commercial College 1977). Taking a closer look at the negatives on the light table, I remembered having made passport photos of them for my classmates for a small fee. I cut the negatives into strips of three frames. I photographed 33 fellow students, of whom 29 were selected for this book. I took the pictures in ambient light. I do not recall using a tripod and in some of the pictures the focus has shifted from the face to the hair of the subject. This was no doubt due to my being nervous about the photographing. I developed the films myself and took contact prints of each one, from which it was easy to choose a suitable picture. From the chosen negatives, I made three standard format passport photographs of each person. The names of the persons are not on the envelope. A few of them were certainly in my class. Now soon 40 years after taking the photos, I recall their names, thinking of what may have become of them.Are all of them even alive any more? Looking at my self-portrait published on the book, can I even recognize myself? Helsinki, 15 September 2014 Martti Jämsä Size 14 x 17 cm Paperboard cover 40 pages Foreword by Martti Jämsä Graphic design: Jorma Hinkka Languages: Finnish and English ISBN 978-951-97491-3-6 Published in 2014 Price €20 + shipping costs

		Eva Wardi Secrecy “Eva Wardi’s photographs are states of mind. The viewer must reject time and place. It is necessary to linger and pause. The landscapes and buildings are reminders of events, films, other photographs. Even if you can’t recognize the locations, the details open up paths and you will try to make additions to the pictures. You construct seriality.” – From the text by Anna-Liisa Haavikko. Size 17,5 x 12,5 cm Thread bound, paperboard covers 80 pages Illustrations: 42 tritone photographs Text: Anna-Liisa Haavikko Citations: Mirkka Rekola Languages: Finnish, Swedish, English ISBN 978-951-97491-1-2 Published in 2013 Price €17 + shipping costs

		Jorma Hinkka Paris Etoile II On Christmas Eve 2011, Jorma Hinkka walked around the Place de l’Étoile in Paris from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. photographing the Arc de Triomphe from the directions of all twelve streets converging on it. The photographs led to the book Paris Etoile II, which was also the Christmas greeting of Graafiset Neliöt Ltd. in 2013. Format 12.5 x 17.2 cm Thread bound, paperboard covers 32 pages Illustrations: 14 colour photographs Language: Finnish (only a few words) ISBN 978-952-93-1698-4 Published in 2013 Price €10, no shipping costs

		Martti Jämsä Rauhoitettu alue / Espace intime The only text of Martti Jämsä’s small artist’s book is a poem by him published in Finnish and French. Here you can read it in English, too. Ruutinkoski Rapids I look through the viewfinder, at a grove by the shore. Focusing the lens on a stand of leafy trees. I press the shutter, …summer morning light… Le rapide de Ruuti A travers le viseuir je regarde le bois au bord de la rivière. je règle l'objectif sur la densité des arbres. Je déclenche l’appareil …lumiére diffuse d’un matin… Format 10 x 17 cm Thread bound, paperboard covers 24 pages Illustrations: 24 black and white photographs Languages: Finnish, French ISBN 951-97-491-0-1 Published in 1996 Price €10, no shipping costs

		Top of page