A Corner With

At Foto Tallinn 2021

2 - 5 September 2021

Giovanna Petrocchi (IT)

Hayleigh Longman (UK)

Sarah van Rij (NL)

Curated by Trine Stephensen

The 2021 edition of Foto Tallinn takes place at Kai Art Center between September 2nd and September 5th, presenting the latest works by 37 Estonian and international artists. As one of the main events of the 6th Tallinn Photomonth Biennial, the fair offers exhibiting artists, galleries and project spaces an opportunity to introduce their works to a diverse audience and grow their network of professional contacts.

At Foto Tallinn, A Corner With presents a collection of works by Giovanna Petrocchi, Hayleigh Longman and Sarah van Rij. Each of the artists’ series and photographic studies were produced in their home environment from March to August 2020.

Giovanna Petrocchi (IT/GB, b. 1988) is an Italian photographer based in London. She graduated from the London College of Communication with a BA in Photography in 2015, and recently completed her MA in Visual Arts at Camberwell College of Arts, London. In 2017 she was selected as a winner of the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award, and in 2019 she exhibited her latest body of work at The Photographers’ Gallery as part of the TPG New Talent mentoring programme. She was recently nominated by CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia as a FUTURES photography talent. Recent exhibitions include With Monochrome Eyes at the Borough Road Gallery, London, and the Athens Photo Festival at the city’s Benaki Museum. 

By combining personal photographs with found imagery and hand-made collages with 3d printing processes, Petrocchi creates imaginary landscapes inspired by surrealist paintings, virtual realities and ancient cultures. Influenced by museum displays and catalogues, Giovanna populates these landscapes with her own collection of surreal artefacts. The received view of ancient objects is deliberately distorted. A recurrent feature of her work is the juxtaposition of futuristic and primordial scenarios and the combination of historical and fictional elements.

Sculptural Entities aims to investigate the relationship between organic and artificial forms, but at the same time, between ancient and contemporary realms. It stems from her interest in examining how knowledge and cultural heritage are produced, organised and consequently authenticated. The work unveils Petrocchi’s personal desire to access and reconnect with the past, whilst allowing the viewer to explore historical narratives in an alternative way – in this case, by inspiring critical thinking via visual stimuli rather than through systematic dissemination of scientific data.

Hayleigh Longman (GB, b. 1995) uses photography to open a dialogue, and to collect stories tied to people and places which explore the duality of human strength and fragility. Longman uncovers ways to visually approach subjects of a sensitive personal nature, considering elements of play and performance within human existence. 

Reflecting on recent periods of isolation – a product of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic – Longman explains that ‘the most honest representation of lockdown is the contrast of chaos and calm, the waves of emotions and anxieties that it has held for me.’ Throughout this period, Longman sought strength and comfort in her mother, as well as turning to the therapeutic potential of self-portraiture. ‘Turning the camera onto myself allowed me to represent the sense of the isolation I felt in the confined spaces of my home. The portrait of myself feels timeless, as did lockdown, with the days merging into one.’

Sarah van Rij (NL, b. 1990) is a self-taught photographer who documents fleeting fragments of life on the street. Working intuitively, and observing her chosen territory closely, van Rij’s images convey a clear visual signature defined by a number of recurring elements, including careful framing; experiments with perspective; touches of vivid colour; and traces of human forms. 

Her work draws influences from various artistic fields – from painting to cinema – whilst building upon rich and longstanding photographic traditions for capturing the subtle beauty found in the everyday. Whilst van Rij’s images are inherently contemporary (a number of photographs are shot on the artist’s iPhone), it is often difficult to place them in time: with the occasional exception, her subject matter is largely devoid of any temporal indicators, lending her work an ageless feeling and evoking nostalgia for times gone by. 

Forced indoors by periods of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, van Rij began work on her Quarantine Still Lifes series, which is presented here at Foto Tallinn: ‘I definitely started looking at details in my home differently in the past weeks. Normally I work out on the street in the places I visit. But since the world has become a still life in itself, and now that my space is limited, I’ve started focusing more on shooting still-lifes, which means working with things found around the house. If you have the urge to create in these times you have to be open and adapt to new spaces and their limitations.’