5.–28.6.2026
Hippolyte Studio

Our relationship with photography has long been in flux. The possibilities of digital image editing, the curation of social media, and, most recently, artificial intelligence have reshaped our understanding of photography as a documentary medium. Silja Tusa’s exhibition Mitä jäljelle jää (What remains) is a series of mixed-media collages made from discarded family photographs. The body of work rejects documentary intent, instead approaching the original images as if they were fragments of memory. By altering the photographs through analogue means—cutting, scratching, painting, and burning—the works visualise the effects of emotion and time on memory. Which is the more truthful account of what happened: a framed, unedited snapshot of a single moment, or an honestly subjective representation of an entire event? The answer is left to the viewer’s interpretation.

Although the series highlights the inability of images to capture the whole truth, it does not contest their capacity to preserve memories and shape reality. The moments we choose to preserve build a narrative of our lives, and what we choose to share with others shapes how we are perceived. The careful curation of images characteristic of our time is reflected in the exhibition through a mixture of works based on Tusa’s own memories, borrowed stories, and fictional or hypothetical recollections. By not disclosing which is which, this mixture highlights the impossibility of knowing the reality of another person’s life through an image-based parasocial relationship.

The process of creating the works lies at the core of the series. Like molecules, the images break apart into fragments and reassemble; death is a prerequisite for birth. By destroying photographs inherited from previous generations, the artist releases the captured moments into history, and the versions of the subjects preserved within the images disappear irreversibly. Each cut, scratch, and brushstroke takes the lost people further away from this world, while at the same time creating space for new memories and new interpretations.

Through acts of destruction, Tusa explores the dimensions of meaning and remembrance: even these, equally constructed and mediated memories, are ultimately ephemeral. For the artist, however, they remain, even in their imperfection, records of a life lived and its significant moments. The process of creation compels to pause in the face of transience, and lingering in ephemerality helps to articulate what is truly important, and what can be left behind and forgotten.

Silja Tusa (b. 1999) is a Tampere-based visual artist working primarily with mixed media, collage, and photography. They graduated in 2024 from the Fine Arts programme at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. Themes of transience and unpredictability are present throughout Tusa’s practice. This is reflected not only in the content of the works, but also in their working method, which emphasises the use of recycled materials. The dismantling of the old in order to create something new reflects the ephemerality of life and the interconnectedness of all things through the circulation of matter. Working with found materials allows chance to leave its mark on the works, requiring the artist to relinquish full control. Tusa’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Finland, including at Nykyaika in Tampere and the Cultural Centre Caisa in Helsinki.

Silja Tusa’s work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.