Jaakko Heikkilä - Coney Island, from series Innocent Shores

Jaakko Heikkilä (b. 1956 Kemi), who lives in Kukkolankoski, Tornio, is one of Finland’s most significant contemporary photographers. Heikkilä has worked as an independent photographic artist since 1989, documenting minorities, marginalized communities, and people living on the edges of the world. His photographic journeys have taken him from the Tornio River Valley to Harlem in New York and to Venice, yet the focus of his images and narratives is always the human being. Heikkilä has a remarkable ability to capture moments as well as the layers of identity and life stories reflected in the faces of the people he photographs. 

In the series Innocent Shores, both Heikkilä’s compassionate and poetic vision of his subjects and his long-standing interest in exploring the encounters between humans and their natural environments are emphasized.