Henri Airo

From today its possible to pre-order a copy of my long-in-process project "Probable Cause", which deals with my sisters death in 2012. The book looks at everything aside that: what was said both in media coverage and police questioning rooms, the images that were made and not made at the time, and how we choose to tell stories of and relate to addiction in Finnish society. "Probable Cause draws on media and police archives, re-enactment and Airo’s personal testimony to understand the circumstances of his sister’s death. By restructuring existing narratives, the project reveals multiple personal perspectives embedded within the official record. In reconstructing the perpetrator’s day, speculation and doubt become entry points for reflecting on how addiction is perceived in Finnish society." The book is published by @kultbooks and designed by @camillamarrese , with book design in trio by Camilla, @janne_riikonen and me. The book will be launched at @hippolytegallery on the 8th of April from 17-19 and is available on the Kult Books webshop. More info to come here soon.

War is a Disaster, (UTU Press 2024) The book is available through the UTU Press webstore (link in bio) or from the following bookstores: Printed Matter @printedmatterinc ISSP Shop @issp_shop Yvon Lambert @librairieyvonlambert Cahier Central @cahiercentral Hippolyte Gallery Bookshop @hippolytegallery Tekstin talo @tekstintalo - Open spine softcover with hand printed dustcover 190mm x 265mm 224 pages Texts in English and Finnish Edition of 300 ISBN 978-952-65274-2-0 FI: Sota on onnettomuus, (Utu Press 2024) Kirja on saatavissa Utu Pressin verkkokaupasta (linkki biossa) sekä Helsingistä: Hippolyten kirjakauppa @hippolytegallery Tekstin talo @tekstintalo ISSP Shop @issp_shop Printed Matter @printedmatterinc - Silkkipainettu kansi 190mm x 265mm 224 sivua Tekstit suomeksi ja englanniksi  Editio 300 kappaletta ISBN 978-952-65274-2-0

𝗛𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 / 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 📚 In January 2012, Henri Airo’s little sister was killed in a hit-and-run by a repeat drunk driver. In that instant, his family’s life was divided into what was before and after. Made in the wake of rediscovering the original police reports in 2018, Henri Airo’s @henri.airo Probable Cause draws on media and police archives, re-enactment and Airo’s personal testimony to understand the circumstances of his sister’s death. By restructuring existing narratives, the project reveals multiple personal perspectives embedded within the official record. In reconstructing the perpetrator’s day, speculation and doubt become entry points for reflecting on how addiction is perceived in Finnish society. Published by Kult Books @kultbooks . This beautiful book is both in English and Finnish. Visit our bookshop to check it out (Yrjönkatu 8-10, Helsinki) and browse more titles online (🔗 in bio). #photobook #bookshop #photographicart #photography #valokuvataiteilija #kirja #valokuvataide #hippolytebookshop

It's launch time! Helsinki friends (and enemies) - come and celebrate the release of three photobooks: Probable Cause by @henri.airo (Kult Books) Gaze Studies by @kaisasyrjaenen (@utu.painaa ) (Inter)Faces of Predictions by @sheungyiuphoto and @himeganwilliams (@spectorbooks & @coberlin ) @hippolytegallery bookshop Wednesday 8th of April 17-19. Special launch prices ☀️ Warm welcome

VENCEDORES PRÉMIOS 🟦 Aí estão os fotógrafos vencedores dos três prémios: Encontros da Imagem, Leituras de Portfólio e Fotolivros. Parabéns a todos os fotógrafos e finalistas! [𝗘𝗡] AWARDS WINNERS 🟦 Here are the winners of the three awards: Encontros da Imagem, Portfolio Reviews, and Photobooks. Congratulations to all the photographers and finalists! Prémio Encontros da Imagem 2025 🟦 Vencedor/Winner: Matevž Čebašek - In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining Prémio Portfólio Reviews 2025 🟦 Vencedor/Winner: Nuno Silva - Enquanto o motivo não me encontrar Prémio Fotolivros 2025 🟦 Melhor Fotolivro: War is Disaster, Menções Honrosas: Tony Dočekal - The Color of Money and Trees Spiros Zervoudakis - Terra incognita Alessandro Mallamaci - Un luogo bello Joanna Tochman - Sunspot Karolina Spolniewski - Hotel of Eternal Light Melhor Maquete: Uta Genilke - SACRE Menções honrosas maquete: Julia Wimmerlin - Down the Rabbit Hole Yufan Lu - Return Andrea Agostini - Nòstos (Homecoming) Alejandra Arévalo Martínez - Blood under the Sundown Light Lei Yang - The Plain Route

last weekend of the exhibition / off places @stoahelsinki / sat 10–16 ⏱️ sun 12–18 / free entry / itäkeskus, 00900 helsinki 🥋

Our project 𝐎𝐟𝐟 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 has moved from Helsinki Kunsthalle to the Stoa Gallery. The new exhibition is built from materials used in our previous installation at Helsinki Kunsthalle, which we dismantled and adapted specifically for the Stoa space. Some images in the exhibition remain from previous installation versions, but many are also new, particularly those showing suburban areas in eastern Helsinki. A series of workshops will be organised as part of the exhibition, where youth from schools in Helsinki observe the architecture of the Stoa area. During the exhibition, photographs created in the workshops are gradually added to the installation in the form of small prints on coloured paper. Stoa / Gallery @stoahelsinki Itäkeskus Turunlinnantie 1, 00900 HKI mon-thu 8–20 〰️ fri 8–18 sat 10–16 〰️ sun 12–18 💹 free entry @kulttuuristadi ☑️ supported by @taikegram

We’re proud to share that our book 𝑾𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓, by @henri.airo , was shortlisted for Les Prix du Livre at @rencontresarles 2025, in the Photo-Text Book category. The Photo-Text category celebrates books where image and text contribute equally to the work. ✏️ 𝑾𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓, explores the links between militarism and collective memory in Finland. Through his own photography, archival material, vernacular images, and personal military records, Airo weaves a layered entity about how war is remembered and narrated in Finland. 🌛 The text parts of the book are written by Henri Airo, Ahmed Al-Nawas, Susanna Hast, Noora Kotilainen, Saara Särmä, and Leena Vastapuu. The book is bilingual (FI & EN). Out of over 830 submissions worldwide, the book was shortlisted and is now on view in a dedicated exhibition at La Mécanique Générale, running ⏩️ 7.7.–5.10.2025. Huge congratulations to all the winners, and big up to the jury members for recognizing our work. 💙 🔆 𝟐𝟐𝟒 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 🔆 𝟏𝟗 𝐱 𝟐𝟔,𝟓 𝐜𝐦 🔆 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 🔆 𝟑-𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐯𝐞 🔆 𝐈𝐒𝐁𝐍 𝟗𝟕𝟖-𝟗𝟓𝟐-𝟔𝟓𝟐𝟕𝟒-𝟐-𝟎 🔆 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝟑𝟎𝟎 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐬 🔆

Off Places 🔗 Summer Rain ▶️ Helsinki Kunsthalle ⏱️ 17.5.–3.8.2025 Since around 2017, we’ve been working together on Off Places, a collaborative project at the intersection of photography and DIY urban research. At the core of the work is our interest in city space and different ways of relating to it. Off Places takes shape through a continual process of documenting the shifting spatial realities of our home city, Helsinki ⏩️ not through maps or zoning, but by walking, observing, photographing, and darkroom printing + occasionally collecting materials left behind in the cityscape. Stored in boxes and lockers at our studio, we’re continually building an evolving archive that mirrors shifts and transformations in public space and architectural ideals. For exhibition contexts, we use this archive and collected materials to stage interventions in the current (exhibition) space. The installation at @taidehalli_helsinki is constructed partly from materials collected at the demolition site of Puistola Elementary School (built in 1990) in northeast Helsinki. Almost the entire installation is built from second-hand materials. Thank you to @taapsu for helping with the design of the installation! 📐 + big thanks to everyone who helped with the construction and the process ❣️ Summer Rain is a group exhibition featuring 20 contemporary artists/groups working in Finland 🔅 The show runs until 3.8.2025. Welcome! ☀️

War is a Disaster, as part of the group exhibition Symbolum Curated by Balloon Project Rocca Malatestiana Fortress Centrale Festival 6. – 8.6.2025 "Symbolum was originally a broken object: a ring, a tile, a fragment of pottery. The two parts, kept by two people, matched perfectly. Reuniting them meant recognising each other, confirming a pact, making a bond visible. The symbol was not just a sign, but a relational presence: a means of connecting two identities, two worlds, two experiences. Over time, this concept became more abstract, but retained its unifying force: Symbolum became the name of the “Creed”, the formula summarising a common faith, a shared spiritual identity. ... ...Every ritual act is a threshold: it connects different worlds, it makes them coexist in gesture, in memory, in matter. This exhibition brings together works that explore the symbol as a living trace of a bond and ritual as a poetic practice of identity. The artists, through different visual and performative approaches, move around the same question: what holds us together? And how can we recognise ourselves, today, in the shared act of vision, storytelling, memory?" Frames by @veeti.valkama Installation images by Lorenzo Babbi

Photobook Feature: War Is A Disaster by @henri.airo Henri Airo critically explores the links between militarism and a collective memory of war in Finland. Published by @utu.painaa , the book combines photographs made at memorial rituals and museums with historical propaganda images, and vernacular images from family albums. You can discover his book on our photobook-dedicated section: phmuseum.com/photobooks  #phmuseum #photobook #henriairo #utupress

This is the final weekend of the group exhibition “Statuomania” at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki. The exhibition curated by @porinkulttuurisaato includes an installation and publication from “______ Ennobles a Person”, a work which I conceived as a commission for the Summer Artist Program at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki last year. Consisting of archival research, performative interventions and a collaborative workshop, “______ Ennobles a Person” examines the bureaucracy, power relations and different meanings surrounding public sculpture in urban space. The starting point of the project is the statue of "Entrepreneur-Jussi" (Aarne Hakala-Rahko ja Matti Peltokangas, 1984), a 2-metre high folk figure in the Seinäjoki main square. For a public sculpture, the statue plays an active role in the local community. It is dressed up for events and functions as a photosite for visitors to document their trip to the city. During the summer I went through local archives and conducted interviews to document the monuments history, which is frought with contention on the decision-making processes in public art. The statue was initiated by Reino Saarinen, the long-time CEO of the local Kesko Retailers Association. On his initiative in 1972, the Retailers' Association had begun a yearly practice of awarding small "Entrepreneur-Jussi" -statues in recognition of local entrepreneurial spirit. For the award, an outsider artist and local farmer Aarne Hakala-Rahko (1909-1976) (known in South Ostrobotnia for his humorous wood sculptures of folk characters) was commissioned to produce a miniature statue depicting a “man of action”. In 1984, the Retailers Association commissioned a 2-metre bronze enlargement of the statuette from a young sculptor, Matti Peltokangas. Soon after its unveiling, local artists were horrified by the sculptures aesthetic and protested in newspapers, as no art experts were involved in decisionmaking regarding public art at the time. Even the sculptor Peltokangas, horrified by the idea of enlarging a small wooden statue as is, had submitted an alternative proposal for the monument which had been swiftly rejected by the board of the Retailers' Association as "too artistic".