Photographer Emmi Minkkinen’s Between Soft Borders exhibition opens at Säynätsalo Town Hall

18.6.–30.9.2026 | Säynätsalo Town Hall, Taipuu Gallery
Opening: 17.6. klo 17.00

Between Soft Borders explores growth, cycles and transitional states of being. The works move through landscapes shaped by water, light, clouds and the body, in moments where something is changing but has not yet settled into a new form.

In the exhibition, a border appears as a soft and shifting space. It may be the moment between childhood and youth, the visible and the invisible, surface and depth, disappearance and emergence. Water is present both as a concrete and symbolic element. It carries, covers, reflects and transforms, reminding us that nothing remains completely still.

Growth appears in the works as part of the cycle of nature and human life. Childhood, the body, memory and landscape are intertwined in images where change is layered, wave-like and sometimes difficult to name.

Between Soft Borders is an exhibition about in-between states, about moments where the old is still present and the new is only beginning to take shape.

Emmi Minkkinen

Emmi Minkkinen (b. 1984) is a photographic artist based in Jyväskylä, Finland. She graduated as a professional photographer in 2017, completed the Specialist Qualification in Photography in 2021, and graduated as a visual artist from Turku Arts Academy in spring 2025.

Minkkinen has held several solo exhibitions and taken part in group exhibitions and publications in Finland and internationally. These include Head On Festival (2025), ImageNation Paris: Just Women (2025), Fotoslovo at the Limassol Municipal Arts Centre (2025), Format21 at Derby Museum and Art Gallery with the work Girls with the Cake (2021), and the publication Eyemama, edited by Karni Arieli (2023).

Recurring themes in Minkkinen’s work include growth, change, nature, memory and intergenerational experience. She is especially interested in the connections between people and nature, and in life stages where something is gradually becoming something else.

Between Soft Borders is part of Minkkinen’s long-term photographic project From the Roots, It Grows (Juurilta versoo). Since 2019, she has photographed the growth of her three daughters alongside the cycles of nature. The series reflects on time, change and the moments in which one stage of life slowly takes shape as another.

In autumn 2026, Minkkinen’s exhibition Daughters of Rauha (Rauhan tyttäret) will be shown at Äänekoski Art Museum. The exhibition explores intergenerational memory, mother-daughter relationships and forgiveness. The project is based on the story of Minkkinen’s great-great-grandmother Rauha, who was killed in her home yard in 1969.

Exhibition information

Between Soft Borders
Taipuu Gallery, Säynätsalo Town Hall
Parviaisentie 9, 40900 Säynätsalo
18 June to 30 September 2026

The exhibition is located in the free exhibition area of Säynätsalo Town Hall.

Open in June, July and August daily from 12.00 to 16.00. Closed on Midsummer Day.