My work explores the relationship between nature and culture. In my artistic work I aim to study the methods, theories, and concepts through which we approach nature in art and in science. Since 1997, I have spent several months each year living alongside biologists in the rainforests of Peru, Brazil, French Guiana, and Costa Rica. Adopting elements of my companions’ scientific methods and concepts, as an artist I am attracted to the idea that when I am working in a rainforest, I am a “visual researcher.”
Sanna Kannisto (born in Hämeenlinna, Finland, 1974) studied photography at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited at venues in more than twenty-five countries around the world, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki. She lives in Helsinki.
Fieldwork, an exhibition of photographs by Sanna Kannisto, is on view through June 23, 2011 at the Aperture Gallery (547 W. 27th Street, 4th Floor) in New York.