Exhibition from 12 April to 2 August 2025
Inauguration on Friday 11 April, 6-8pm
Institut finlandais presents Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden, an exhibition by contemporary photographer Hilla Kurki, bringing together two photography series: If You Are a Wound, I Am the Scar and Almost all the flowers in my mother’s garden. Through her photography, Kurki reflects on her own experience of loss and complex family ties. The exhibition gathers these images and collectively shared memories of mothers, daughters and sisters.
Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden was photographed in Kurki’s mother’s garden in South-Eastern Finland. The artist felt a silent gap between herself and her mother and through photography, she started reflecting on their relationship more closely.
For Kurki, the flowers represented individuals, beings, competing with her for her mother’s attention. In the artist’s mind, the flowers started to symbolize daughters, and the nurture that forms the basis of one of our most intimate relationships.
The series, consisting of over a hundred photographs and quotes, was first published as a book in 2022. The images are paired with personal texts collected from anonymous female artists of Kurki’s generation in a series where “sweet and sour memories blend together and echo one another, to show how our personal histories grow from similar soil.”
If You Are a Wound, I Am the Scar is a series of autoportraits in which Hilla Kurki photographs herself in dialogue with her late sister’s dresses. Through performative acts and self-portraiture, Kurki addresses the complex process of grief and healing after her sister passed away. As part of her self-recovery, the artist is leaning on to her family’s legacy of rug-making; by cutting, sewing and weaving the clothes of the deceased, she is taking back the authority of her fate.
The images portray a play between the visual and tactile. Using her own body with the dresses of her late sister, Kurki examines the relationship between memories and materialities. Can objects harbour emotions? Can we access them? This act, combined with the female nude, has grown to represent liberation from far more than just grief: the works have become a tool for the artist to help find her own identity in the world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hilla Kurki, autoportrait
Hilla Kurki (b. 1985, Anjalankoski, Finland) follows a long history of female artists who renegotiate the past through self-reflection and re-evaluation of their families’ relationships.
Kurki has exhibited in various international venues and art fairs since 2016. Her work was selected for Elles X Paris Photo in 2018, showcasing the history and future of female photographers. She was awarded the Prix Nature Morte at the Hyères International Festival 2019. Her first book Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden was selected among the Most Beautiful Books of 2022 by the Finnish Book Art Committee.
The artist graduated with a Master of Arts from Aalto University’s School of Arts and Design in 2018. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.
www.hillakurki.com | @hillakurki
Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden is presented until 2 August 2025 at Institut finlandais, 60 rue des Écoles, 75005 Paris.