Can permanence be recognized? Which building is valuable enough to be preserved? In Finland, many sites, even quite young ones, are currently being demolished, justified by the lack of a purpose or an economic unviability. The nuanced layering of the built environment is flattened and the carbon released during demolition is released into the atmosphere.

My photographs in this exhibition “Spaces Remember” are personal research material on architecture and the human relationship to space and places. I want to offer visitors a holistic experience, a space and a memory created by photographs. The floor of the Cellar Gallery in Laterna Magica is Finnish bedrock which provides a solid foundation for this exhibition. I wish the the combined message told by the bedrock and photographs about permanence, remembrance and the future awakens the viewer to realize the madness of the current wave of demolition. I want to highlight the importance of permanence in architecture – instead of the madness of demolition.

The images tell of defiant, preserved sites - but perhaps also of some lost battles.

Helena Marja Teräväinen is an architect, Doctor of Technology, currently a freelance researcher and photographer.

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