The Most Beatiful Books selection 2024 by The Finnish Book Art Committee.

Main prize: Photo/Frome Photobook Award 2024, by Photo/Frome Festival.

Finalist: Finnish Photobook Award 2024, by Finnish Museum of Photography & Hippolyte Gallery.

Finnish visual artist Henri Airo explores the links between militarism and a collective memory of war in Finland. For those who’ve not lived through it, historical wars often remain obscure events that challenge and defy imagination. The book combines Airo’s photographs made at memorial rituals and museums with historical propaganda images collected from the Finnish Army Image Archive, and vernacular images selected from his private family albums. In addition, the work weaves these images together with an array of archival records, from war film pre-production documents and news media clippings to reports relating to Airo’s personal history and his conscription service.
Visual culture serves as a means of imagining and identifying with past conflict. A central theme in the work is the relationship between willing conviction and inherited ideals, and the moral friction they contain.

The text parts of the book are written by Henri Airo, Ahmed Al-Nawas, Susanna Hast, Noora Kotilainen, Saara Särmä, and Leena Vastapuu.
Myths and traumas are the building blocks of collective consciousness. Canonised narratives create identities and affiliations — divisions between us and others. This stunningly researched and visually impressive work by photographer Henri Airo explores Finnish war remembrance and sums up the essence in the title: war is a disaster. -The Finnish Book Art Committee, 2024.

The combination of photographs and archival material is epistemologically successful, as it brings together both collective and personal memories. The layout and design of the book support this approach, allowing the reader to gain a deeper understanding by both reading and examining the images and documents more closely. -Finnish Photobook Award 2024 Jury.

Näyttely: 14.6.-10.8.2024 Hippolyte, Korjaamo, Helsinki ja 21.9.-15.10.2024 Mältinranta, Tampere.

Tekstit (suomeksi ja englanniksi): Henri Airo, Ahmed Al-Nawas, Susanna Hast, Noora Kotilainen, Saara Särmä & Leena Vastapuu = War is a disaster / texts: Henri Airo, Ahmed Al-Nawas, Susanna Hast, Noora Kotilainen, Saara Särmä & Leena Vastapuu.