┐ Iiu Susiraja └

@ Iiu Susiraja, Näytös, from the series Älä nyt suutu, 2008/09

@ Iiu Susiraja, Kannel, from the series Syömään, pöytä on katettu, 2010

“In Susiraja’s esthetics, an image does not remain an image; rather, it requires an entire life. Although Susiraja has focused on photography, her art genre is more comprehensive: to shape a work of art from life. Usually, the salesmen of this genre rely on the American smile, non-sense polished with first-class product phraseology, but Susiraja doesn’t work that way. She scavenges ultimate experiences and the most dismal version of reality, although sometimes the imaginative possibilities for light-hearted gliding on the surface. However, without the history of long-term exclusion and bullying, the pictures would be something entirely different.

The history of exclusion and feigned betterment repeats itself from one society and community to another. There is supposed to be a mold, into which everyone should fit and get stuck. There is still space for one more, ridiculed and excluded, who helps those feigning betterment to recognize their excellence. Susiraja becomes a sacrifice on the cross, saying: “Spit more”; except Susiraja doesn’t climb all the way to the cross, because there is bench closer, and a handy hostess can make a cross from the handle of the broom faster.

Susiraja shows how the crappiest experiences can mold an artistic counter-weapon: cripplingly mundane and fatally ridiculous all at once.”

More of Iiu’s work here