Anu Suhonen
Artist
Visual artist and photographer Anu Suhonen spent January 2012 at our artist residency in New York. Suhonen is fascinated by big cities. In her work, she examines ideas such as controlled chaos, formation of structures, and experiencing loneliness in the crowds of a metropolis. Making visual notes of her environment, by photographing and filming it, forms the core of her artistic work. She often uses errors, faults, and misunderstandings as her starting point. Besides photography and video she also creates installation art.
Suhonen is more interested in similarities than differences between places and cultures. She is curious about the ways people adapt to their habitat, how they react to it, and how they finally settle down.
Suhonen believes that we tend to become blind to certain features of our own familiar environment. This is why, as an artist, a change of scenery every now and then is important for her. Where routines break down, there lies a chance to see differently. Suhonen anticipates that the benefits of working in an artist residency will be multiplied when back in Finland because for a brief moment after coming home she will be able to view the familiar surroundings like an outsider would.
In addition to her own artistic career, Suhonen currently works as Gallery AARNI's exhibition coordinator at the WeeGee Exhibition Centre in Espoo, Finland.
