Threshold (Utopias Lahti 2026)

I’d look longer, if I’d have the time.

Let’s make one thing clear: none of this is necessarily true. But still, it resembles something like that: colors, textures, positions.

Spectrum, mist, glimmer, boundaries; haze.

When I close my eyes, they glow red. When the world opens up again, for a moment everything is covered in blue. If you look intensely, the surface begins to ripple.

I’ve gathered these from here and there. Something has aroused my curiosity, disturbed my peace, entangled my thoughts. Then came the need to do something with them: place them side by side, on top of each other, interspersed.

A photograph doesn’t necessarily make things simpler, but it can make them manageable. Uncomfortable questions get a channel to flow through. Things start to fall into place – or apart.

Do you notice it now?

***

Threshold is a group exhibition gathering together works by the 2026 graduating class of the Photography Department at LAB Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts. The exhibition juxtaposes fourteen very different relationships to the medium of photography, which the artists approach through observation, memory, structure, and open-ended questions. The installations have been designed into a disused basement complex together with the artists, and are produced according to the circular economy principles of the festival.

Utopias Lahti is an artist-run visual arts festival organised in Lahti, Finland. The third edition of the festival takes place in May 2026.