Introspection through photography

It is Monday. The start of a new week means new opportunities, new possibilities that can be possible. A new chance to make new and better choices.

We make tea or coffee. We make breakfast. We jump into the shower. The shower room is the secret space where our deepest thoughts emerge without censorship or witnesses. The calming, relaxing sound of the water seems to magically shower away our true feelings about how past choices have shaped our present lives; our today.

Is this how I really wanted my life to be?

The duality of Monday is, for some, the beginning of the unbearable reality of the responsibilities at work or in the family that invariably hits every seven days. For others, it is the fresh and uplifting bright start of another week full of possibilities, new challenges, new expectations.

This introspection was the result of attending Finnish photographer Päivi Koskinen’s photography exhibition opening which illustrates some of those feelings through the metaphor of showering away fear, uncertainty, and frustration from the day.

Taking risks, social pressure, making decisions about career and family life are some of the human conflicts Koskinen explores through her work. We can all recognise ourselves with the doubts that present themselves as ghosts whenever we are facing a time we have to make a choice that will impact our future.

After speaking with Koskinen, I learned that the photography project was born in Spain, where Koskinen was living at the time, and continued in Finland through interviews and photo sessions with people in different careers who told their story and struggles, questioning if they had made the right decisions as they were advancing in life.

The photographs capture the protagonists of the stories wearing their work clothing as the symbol of the kind of life the viewer sees from the outside, unknowing the inner struggles, daily difficulties, and regrets of choices made in the past.

We see a nurse wearing her scrubs in the shower, a hotel manager wearing a suit in a water fountain, a construction worker wearing his safety helmet in the rain.

And I wonder, how much of their life was chosen by them and how much was the result of choices based on social standards, social pressure, or looking for social acceptance.

Our reality, more than being directly chosen by us, sometimes seems to have been silently selected for us by society with the promise of happiness. An accepted and standard concept of happiness. What is happiness, after all? Happiness is not represented or conceptualised in the same way by all of us.

With my own questions, curious about this project and its significance which can be both so similar yet so different from individual to individual, I asked Koskinen what she was expecting to explore with this project, a combination of professional photography and conceptual art, in my view.

“I am interested in the real context. I have looked for people to portray who have identified themselves with the project, helping me at the same time on my own personal identification,” Koskinen explains.

Through this introspection, Koskinen tries to make people reflect on the realities and experiences currently shaping their lives. Would the wife with three children like to fulfil her dream of being an independent professional?

Would the successful photographer like to have a family instead of her career?

Sometimes we make ourselves too busy to stop and think about our daily routine. If we are not completely satisfied with our life as it is today, do we dare to change the direction of our lives to pursue our dreams instead of washing them away?

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Art and photography exhibitions are a fantastic source of inspiration for writing. I particularly enjoy exhibition openings because of the social aspect of it and for the opportunity to meet and speak with the artist or the photographer. There is so much thought and work behind each artwork!