Interview • 074 PH

Janne Riikonen, Empty Billboards

Stockholm, Sweden

Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?

I'm Janne Riikonen, Finnish photographed based in Stockholm Sweden. I work on documentary photography projects and run the publishing project Kult Books.

What is your relationship with photography and how did you get into it?

I got into photography around 2009 when my flatmate-at-the-time taught me photography and how to develop film. At that time I had just started to study journalism BA and got more and more interested in visual storytelling and especially photojournalism. Some years later during my MA studies my interest shifted to deeper and more investigative projects.

I love photography as a medium: It's immediate, versatile and universal. Sadly I have to confess that my passion for photography decreased soon after it became my job. But since I published my debut book Personalia I have started to find inspiration again and also started to work on some new projects that I'm excited about.

What do you think triggers you to photograph in a certain moment? Is it planned or solely driven by intuition?

My photography is very planned. I work on narrow conceptual projects. Photography itself is not important, rather the observations made with a camera.

What is the story you want your pictures to tell?

I want to tell something about human behavior, something that resonates with people and makes them reflect on their own values, habits, relations and behavioral patterns.

Which city would you like to visit the most, and why?

Tokyo. I'd love to feel the pulse of the city and just let loose. Japanese culture in all its peculiarities is something I just want to dive into.

What is your personal relationship to cities and how do you perceive them as places in general?

Cities and urban cultures inspire me a lot. The way cities are build invite people to act in a certain way, yet people find their own ways of using them. Skateboarders for example, have a completely unique way of seeing a city. A handrail or a stair set, a sculpture or a bench are suddenly turned into something completely different than what they initially were intended for. It is fascinatin, to see how people participate and act in an urban environment and make it their own.

Regarding your project Empty Billboards: What was your intention and how did you come up with the idea?

I made the first photographs for my project in Kenya in 2016. I noticed these gigantic empty billboards everywhere and made photos of them without thinking much further. But it was in New York later in 2016 when I understood this could be turned into a larger project about a theme that's very important to me. So I turned the empty billboards into a «visual statement against the unsustainable culture of consumption» that's so prevalent in all societies today. 

Which project did you never finish?

By far I've finished my personal projects in a way or another, although my project The Neighbors never got the continuation I planned. I shot the first part of the work in Sundsvall during the fist year of my MA studies and planned to continue the project after moving to other places.

The Neighbors is about—surprise surprise—my neighbors and the perception of home. In this work I combined their portraits with details from their apartments which I thought symbolized or characterized the person. I plan to continue the work when moving to new places and divide the work into chapters by location.

If you could travel back/forth in time, what advice would you give your younger/older self?

To my younger me I'd say to trust myself and to care less what others think of me.

What do you prefer saying: «to take a photograph» or to «make a photograph», and why?

Pictures are taken, photographs are made. My photography is very planned and I surely affect the result. I therefore consider myself making, even constructing many of my photographs rather than just taking it.

What is the most interesting experience you have had while photographing?

Getting to travel to places I otherwise had no business with like villages in rural Sierra Leone and mountain tops in Nepal. In Sweden the most interesting experience has definitely been working on my book Personalia about Swedish graffiti culture. Besides making portraits with the writers I spent numerous days and nights following them on their spraying adventures sneaking around train yards and dark tunnels, and dodging guards while making photographs.

What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?

Besides Empty Billboards I'm working on some other photography projects. I hope to publish my next book The Photographic Evidence in 2021. The Photographic Evidence is a collection of authentic court documents from graffiti related cases. Within the work I present and analyze the relevance, objectivity and visual language of the visual evidence. I'm also running a small publishing project Kult Books with which I have many projects going on at the moment.

Thank you, Janne!

Editorial Notes:

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Photography: Janne Riikonen (2020)
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Links: Website, Instagram, Kult Books

Interview • 074 PH

Stockholm, Sweden

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