Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Behind Finnish school shootings

Published on September 25, 2008 in Finland. 0 Comments

Again Finland woke from a slumber into a nightmare. Less than 11 months after the Jokela school shooting a similar tragedy repeated in Kauhajoki.

STAKES (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health) reported in July 2008 Dialogi magazine that the state has not taken responsibility of formulating a comprehensive national account of school curatorial and psychological resources. 

The need for more resources was recognised in 1973 and a committee proposed that by mid-80′s in Finland should be established 500 posts for school psychiatrists and another 500 for school curators. But professor Matti Rimpelä from STAKES states that the general interest in resources for children and youngsters died out already in the early 80′s.

Rimpelä has tried to find the data for 1980′s but all of it has disappeared which, he says, well describes the attitude. Since then, only two questionnaires were carried out: in 1990-91 Finland had 201 curators and 123 psychiatrists, in 1993-94 just a tad more. During the 90′s the burden on the resources grew a lot. After 1994 no studies have been made: no-one knows the numbers of today.

Meanwhile, Finland has been internationally shining for its success in the PISA studies. Thousands of experts have traveled to Finland to learn from the educational wonderland. It goes without saying that, a study of the “PISA tourism” has already been carried out.

So, has the country been dreaming about unlimited marvels of the uncontrolled economy while making of decisions has been handed over to the business world? Has it been a dream where everyone takes care of themselves only? Also within families.

Moves in Russia

Published on September 18, 2008 in 2006 photo, About work and Russia. 0 Comments

My first moves in Russia took place in the mid 80′s when I was still in music, and our band Kadotetut (The Lost Ones) was among the first western rock groups to play in the USSR (this was roughly two years before Uriah Heep’s 1987 concert in Moscow). The train was then a great way of making it to Leningrad or Moscow. The atmosphere in the old style restaurant cars was charming, something that you could still enjoy in 2006 on a train to St. Petersburg:

Recently the Repin trains were changed to modern hardware, resulting in interiors quite as uninspiring as their Finnish counterparts.

Commuting in the large cities can be nightmarish instead, like when I was in Moscow photographing at the Millionaire Fair: the previous night’s 20-minute taxi drive took 3 hours and 40 minutes the following day. Many drivers had the nerve to start tailing ambulances wedging their way through the streets. The picture below was taken towards the end of the drive.

At the fair houses like this were on offer.

Meanwhile, in the outskirts of St. Petersburg multiple colossal suburbs were under construction.

Cairo 1990

Published on September 17, 2008 in 1990 photo, About work and Egypt. 0 Comments

I continue with publishing older travel pictures. In an earlier post I told about the disappeared color negatives. I just went through my multiple piles of quick lab copies from our student trip to Cairo in 1990.

The locally made prints are nicely tanned, but it is hard to say anything else positive about the pictures. It is disturbing to go through 15 rolls worth of images and to see that nearly all of it is rubbish. This one popped up though. It was taken at the camel market and it seems to record something about the great theatre of trading.

The course was titled Contact Photography. Our teacher Stefan Bremer said that he does not want us to bring in pictures of people’s backs. I think I took this too seriously, as I remember the sentence knocking in the back of my head for long. So I have heaps of sluggish compositions with a local fruit seller, shoe trader or meat seller grinning for the camera. When using black and white I seem to have experienced a few more moments of questioning the designated modus operandi.

School of wrong life

Published on September 3, 2008 in Latvia. 0 Comments

Maira’s book about the life of a girl in her early teens was published last Friday. Even if you can’t read Latvian, you can get a clue about the stories through Anete Melece’s illustrations. The publisher is specialising on books for children and youngsters: readers which for long have been overlooked by the industry in Latvia. Maira Dobele: Nepareisas dzives skola.

Nokia in Jyväskylä

Published on September 3, 2008 in About work. 0 Comments

The Centre for Creative Photography in Jyväskylä shows my Nokia series between 28.8. and 21.9.2008.