Ulla-Maija Alanen
NYMPHAEA ALBA – Lumpeen monet kasvot / The Many Faces of the Water Lily
Kuusamotalo, ylälämpiö/ Kuusamo Hall, Upper Foyer
11 September – 30 October 2026
Accessible entry
I am a visual artist and an architect, and I have worked across many fields of art. Pain led me into cold waters. In addition to its therapeutic effects, water gave me something more: an enchanted world where the experience of existence is entirely different from that in the atmosphere. Aquatic plants became my companions. Because of my desire to merge with the water, I use nothing more than a snorkel, a mask, and a light camera when working underwater. I never use anything but natural light when photographing. The dense embrace of cold water calms the nervous system, as does the complete silence created by the sound barrier at the water’s surface. I feel privileged that through my art I have been able to bring a landscape so familiar to all Finns—yet largely unknown beneath the surface—into public view.
My background as a dancer is reflected in my underwater art. I see the life stages of water lilies as choreographed scenes—from classical ballet to Japanese butoh, where extreme sensitivity and raw force coexist.
As an artist, beauty without depth does not interest me. The otherworldly beautiful water lilies blooming on the surface all resemble one another. To me, they are like signposts—markers indicating where it is worth diving through the membrane of water. Beneath the surface, the water lily always appears as an individual—often delicate and fragile, yet at the same time powerful, wild, animalistic, and even grotesque.
The water’s surface is a double mirror. The mirror below reflects images of depth. In clear waters, the water lily blooms already beneath the surface, close to it. In the series Mirror of Water 1–4, sunlight shines through the water into the heart of the flower, which is visible only through its reflection. As the flower pierces the surface, it is as if its spirit and body unite.
The images of water lilies shooting their seeds are a botanical sensation*. Even the most authoritative botanical publications contain gaps in the understanding of water lily biology. Before the photographic evidence I captured, it was not known that the fruit of the water lily is an explosive capsule. Since only flowering plants produce fruit, and since the water lily lineage is among the oldest flowering plants in the history of the world (approx. 120 million years), I named this series Archefruit. These works simultaneously depict the death of the flower and the birth of new life, as the water lily, with its last strength, shoots hundreds of red seeds into the water.
The exhibition also includes the book Veden horisontit / Horizons of Water, which brings together 15 years of my work beneath the surface of forest lakes. The book has been selected for the Finnish Book Art Committee’s Most Beautiful Books of the Year 2025 collection. It is also, alongside two other works, a finalist for the Photobook of the Year 2025 award.
In addition to the works on display in the exhibition, pieces featured in the book can be purchased directly from me as commissioned works—either as prints, framed pieces, or pigment prints mounted on dibond.
* botanist Ilpo Kuokka
