Salla Tykkä

Salla Tykkä lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. She completed her MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2003, following a period of study from 1995 onwards. During her studies, photography and moving image became the principal mediums of her practice. Working across short fiction, documentary, and longer film formats, Tykkä has developed a distinctive body of work concerned with the relationship between images, perception, memory, and power. Her films and videos are rooted in questions of female experience, with particular attention to the act of looking and to the processes of seeing and being seen. Rather than treating images as neutral forms of representation, Tykkä examines the ways in which they are constructed and how they shape the viewer’s understanding of people, bodies, environments, and events. Through processes of disassembling, reframing, and recontextualising images and scenes, she reveals connections between personal experience and broader political and social structures. Tykkä’s practice often moves between intimate and political registers. Emotional, vulnerable, and personal perspectives become ways of approaching larger questions concerning power, representation, and the structures embedded in everyday visual culture. Her films frequently resist straightforward narrative development, allowing atmosphere, gesture, observation, and the construction of the image itself to become central elements of the work. Since the early 2000s, Tykkä has presented her work extensively in Finland and internationally. Her solo exhibitions have included presentations at Galerie Anhava in Helsinki, Södertälje Konsthall, the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum in Turku, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, M – Museum Leuven, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle, De Appel in Amsterdam, Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York, FACT in Liverpool, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, Portikus in Frankfurt, Tramway in Glasgow, Kunsthalle Bern, and Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris. She has also participated in numerous international group exhibitions, including at Artspace Boan in Seoul, EKKM in Tallinn, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Momentum Biennial in Moss, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Göteborgs Konsthall, MAXXI in Rome, the Metropolitan Arts Centre in Belfast, the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Istanbul Modern, Turner Contemporary in Margate, the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Kiasma in Helsinki, P.S.1 in New York, The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel, Bergen Kunsthall, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. Her films have been screened widely at international film festivals and in specialised film and moving-image contexts. Across her work, Tykkä continues to explore the complex relationship between image and experience, using the language of cinema to examine how personal and emotional perspectives can become forms of critical reflection on the social and political structures that shape contemporary life.