Pasi Räsämäki: Urbaario – a collection of urban finds

Pasi Räsämäki
URBAARIO – A COLLECTION OF URBAN FINDS

I got the idea of Urbaario, when I started photographing urban discoveries. When plant-related material is searched for and stored in a familiar herbarium, the urbarium collects discoveries about human habitat and interprets the information they convey about our species and lifestyle. The collector of the urbaario observes the mundane urban environment and trains the eye to notice what is buzzing in the landscape: someone has dropped a bottle cap or sunglasses, someone has forgotten their backpack, someone else their wristwatch. In describing these random discoveries, I have been pondering what they look like and where they come from. Effort has been put into developing a product and a brand – and then, once it's consumed, it becomes rubbish. Ambiguous images that play with a change of scale bring before us the roaring beauty of these forgotten objects.

Similar random beauty exists in archaeology. Hardly anyone in the past has dropped a ring on a field to leave it there on purpose. The money has been hidden for reasons other than as a sign to those who discover it in the future. Abandoned places of residence have simply been left where they are. By studying them, we modern humans can deduce a wide range of things from the lifestyles of the people of the past.

In the Urbaario – A Collection of Urban Finds exhibition, my photographs and archaeological finds engage in a dialogue about the questionable difference between rubbish and treasure. By comparing these different elements, you can also think about the wasteful human nature – throughout the ages, we also leave behind unintended signs of ourselves. The past is not only behind us, but it is also beneath us, on many floors. On top, on the surface layer, we see traces of the life of a modern, urban human.

Pasi Räsämäki (born 1966) is a Finnish Art Photographer. He studied photography in the Lahti polytechnic and has worked actively in Art Photography and as a teacher. In 2018 he participated in the exhibition on increasing inequality Does it feel familiar? – Photographs of everyday life in Finland in the Finnish Museum of Photography. Works of Räsämäki are included in the collections of the Helsinki Art Museum, the Joensuu Art Museum and Finnish Museum of Photography.