2022 -

What would being together be without preconceptions about others, and unspoken rules? How would we encounter each other without past, future, opinions, or actions taken?

The performative Stranger -photo series includes photographs in which the artist Mari Mäntynen appears with strangers. Each picture is taken during the first encounter with the new person. The underling idea of the photos suggests: We are each other’s environment.

In the social approaches and during the image-making process, Mäntynen challenges social norms and asks each other with the person being photographed: How do we position ourselves in the photo? Can we touch each other? What can we do together? After the photo is taken, there is time to settle and to talk about the experience and about each other.

The series includes about 30 finished photos taken in Germany, Benin, Tenerife, Finland and Italy. The Stranger series is ongoing, and Mäntynen is constantly producing more images.