MY IMAGINATION HAS NO LIMITS
Emma Sarpaniemi
One of the cover stories of Arxipelag Volume III is a rich portfolio featuring previously unseen images by Finnish artist Emma Sarpaniemi. We met her during last Paris Photo fair and had a nice chat on the stairs of Grand Palais.
“I’m not creating an alter ego; I find it inevitable that I recognise myself in the portraits, where my identity, reality, and imagination are intertwined. Creating each self-portrait is different since my emotions, place, props etc. influence the photoshoot a lot. Play as an act allows me to explore representation and resist conventions of the gaze. Each character offers a possibility to reconstruct oneself.”
Find Emma Sarpaniemi’s full story and interview in the pages of Arxipelag Volume III ( Fun ).
Emma Sarpaniemi
Emma Sarpaniemi is a Helsinki-based artist, graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK, 2019).Her practice examines womanhood and femininity through performative self-portraiture, using the image to question representation and resist the gaze. Her work has been exhibited across Europe, including Jarmuschek+Partner (2025), NEVVEN (2025), The Finnish Museum of Photography K1 (2024), Les Rencontres d’Arles (2023), Photo Elysée (2025), Museum Folkwang (2024), and Miettinen Collection (2024). It is held in public collections such as The Finnish Museum of Photography, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, City of Gothenburg, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Museum Folkwang, Miettinen Collection, Podesta Collection, Turku Art Museum, and The Finnish State Art Funds, as well as private collections in Finland, Copenhagen, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland.
