An exhibition by French photographer Stéphanie Lacombe (b. 1976), Finns at the Dinner Table, opening at the Cable Gallery on December 8, portrays the uniqueness of the everyday.

“Who are my neighbours, what do they do, what kind of life do they live, where are they from?”

These questions prompted Stéphanie Lacombe to embark on a photography project about ordinary everyday life – and especially about everyday dining habits – in her home country of France. The City of Helsinki invited this award-winning photographer to an artist’s residency in autumn 2010, to carry out a corresponding project in the Helsinki metropolitan region. More than twenty families/couples/individuals took up the challenge and let Stéphanie take a peek into their homes to photograph their everyday mealtime moments.

“My photographs observe the ordinary so as to bring out the unusualness of everyday moments. I don’t direct my work at the food so much as at the behaviour of my fellow human beings at the dinner table, at home, among their family. Breaching anonymity, and shedding light on private worlds, on solitude, on its dark sides and its beauty, makes it possible to say something about the residents’ ordinary lives and shows the uniqueness of individual people.”

The Finns at the Dinner Table exhibition is also being shown at the L’Institut finlandais in Paris 1.12.2011–7.1.2012 and at the Vuosaari House Gallery in Helsinki 17.1.–10.3.2012.

Stéphanie Lacombe graduated from L’École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. Apart from France, her works have been shown in the USA, Argentina and Finland. She has received numerous prizes, the most important being the internationally respected photography award, le Prix Niépce, in 2009.

The exhibition has been produced by the City of Helsinki Cultural Centre.
Further details: Sara Kuusi, sara.kuusi@hel.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 334 0470