Sanna Elina Ahtisaari

Biography

Sanna Elina Ahtisaari is a Finnish multidisciplinary artist working across photography, installation, film, books and interdisciplinary projects.

For more than twenty-five years, she has developed a body of work exploring memory, identity, ecology and human presence. Through long-term observation and sustained relationships, her practice examines how personal and collective histories become embedded in bodies, landscapes and everyday rituals.

Born in Iisalmi in Eastern Finland and based between Finland and Paris for many years, Ahtisaari's work is shaped by a dialogue between the forest landscapes of her childhood and the international image culture in which she came of age. Between 1997 and 2000, she collaborated with photographers including Pierre et Gilles and Rankin and appeared in publications such as Vogue, i-D and Dazed & Confused. Known in Paris as “the chameleon” for her ability to inhabit radically different visual identities, she became part of a generation of image-makers exploring new forms of representation at the intersection of art, fashion and visual culture.

In 2000, she stepped away from modelling and agency representation to pursue her own artistic practice. Rather than remaining the subject of images, she chose to become their author. This transition marked the beginning of an interdisciplinary inquiry that continues to this day.

Working through photography, film, installation, objects, books and collaborative projects, Ahtisaari returns to recurring questions of transformation, belonging and continuity. Cyclical forms, intergenerational memory and the relationship between human life and the living world appear throughout her work, from early projects such as Floating Density (2004) to long-term bodies of work including Kasken Kierto, River Flows and Esiäidit / Ancestress.

Throughout her career, Ahtisaari has sought collaborations that reflect her ecological and human-centred values. These concerns often extend beyond the subject matter of her work and shape how projects are developed and produced.

Alongside her artistic practice, Ahtisaari has developed projects spanning publishing, design and spatial installations, collaborating with artists, designers, writers and cultural institutions. While the mediums vary, the underlying inquiry remains constant: how meaning is carried through matter, memory, relationships and place.

Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of Design Museum Helsinki, Palais Galliera, the agnès b. Collection and the City of Iisalmi Art Collection.

She lives and works in Helsinki.

Selected CV

Selected Exhibitions

2025 — Portraits of Saheli Women, OFR, Paris

2025 — Esiäidit, landscape installation, Konnevesi Museum, Finland

2023 — Punojat, Kamp Galleria, Helsinki

2023 — Sunchase, design and photographic installation, Helsinki

2021 — Pyhät Matot, painting installation, Lapinlahti, Helsinki

2021 — Kasken Kierto, photographic landscape sculpture, Lapinlahti, Helsinki

2020 — You Are Nature, photographic landscape sculpture, Moisio, Finland

2020 — Land of Love, plant-dye installation, Garden Room, Helsinki

2019 — Monoliitti, installation, Retretti, Punkaharju

2019–2021 — Lehto, photographic landscape sculpture, Punkaharju

2019 — River Flows, exhibition and book launch, OFR, Paris

2018 — You Are Nature, installation, Maison de l’Architecture, Paris

2018 — Holy Tree, installation, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

2017 — Kasken Kierto, photographic landscape installation, Vallisaari, Finland

2016 — Life & Existence, installation, OFR, Paris

2015 — Kasken Kierto, Eemil Halonen Art Museum, Finland

2013 — Kotatakki, installation, Hyvinkää Art Museum, Finland

2012 — Kotatakki, Design Museum Helsinki, Finland

2010 — There Is a Forest in All of Us, installation, agnès b., Paris

2009 — Floating Density, multimedia installation, OFR, Paris

Publications

Esiäidit / Aïeules / Ancestress (forthcoming)

River Flows, OFR Éditions, Paris, 2019

The Woolsock People, OFR Éditions, Paris, 2009

Collections

Design Museum Helsinki

Palais Galliera, Paris

agnès b. Collection

City of Iisalmi Art Collection

Selected Press

Helsingin Sanomat

Kuukausiliite

Libération

Madame Figaro

Milk Magazine

Hunger Magazine

Image

Elle

Under the Influence Magazine

Ohisophy

From the Finnish word ohi — that which passes.

Ohisophy is Ahtisaari’s practice of attentive observation. Rooted in photography yet extending beyond any single medium, it proposes that meaning often emerges through what is fleeting, overlooked or in transition.

Developed in Paris in the early 2000s, Ohisophy emerged from a growing interest in perception, embodiment and the relationship between human beings and the living world. Rather than seeking fixed answers, it encourages a sustained attention to what unfolds between people, places, memories and time.

Through photography, film, installation and writing, Ahtisaari explores how traces remain: in bodies, landscapes, relationships and matter itself. Observation becomes an act of care, and image-making a way of listening to the world.

Many of the questions first explored through Ohisophy continue throughout Ahtisaari’s work, including Floating Density, Kasken Kierto, River Flows and Esiäidit / Ancestress.

Originally written in Paris in 2003, the complete Ohisophy essay can be read below.

[Full essay follows]