Maija Savolainen is a photographer based in Helsinki, Finland. Her book When Sense of Belonging is Bound to the System of Movement is a travel diary of a ten day trip dedicated to reinterpreting the mechanical aspect of photography in a planetary scale. Maija’s work has been shown throughout Western Europe, most recently spanning Paris, Vienna, and Amsterdam.
“It is said that a photograph can stop time. When pressing the button, movement of a shutter allows only a defined amount of light to touch a photo sensitive surface. There, a picture is formed and a slice of time is preserved in a photograph.
The movement of earth around the sun controls the amount of light that hits the globe. The planetary system is as precise as a shutter of a camera. If I think of myself being in the position of a photosensitive material, by moving along the longitudes I can define the daily amount of sunlight that enter my presence. By moving myself I can function as a shutter does – control the light.
I set off on 26 March 2011 from the latitude N 45° 54’. After nine days, I was 2 000 km further south, at N 29° 42’. Travel compensated the increment of the length of the day, meaning that every day of my travel had exactly the same length, 12h 24min 7s. As if the same day was repeated again and again and the time had stopped.” For more information on Maija and her work, please visit her website.