I started to shoot built and preserved environment's textures at Piiru, Tampere Region Built Heritage Centre, in Pispala, Finland, in summer 2019. I was immediately spellbound of the preserved surfaces there. Carefully renovated old mansion was, and is, a treasure of environmental heritage. I will continue my mission to notice and record more and to specialize myself as a "photographer of traces". To shoot a story of our shared skin of environmental heritage; story which is shareable with all people in Europe.

The skin of environmental heritage Sun. Color of an old wood door, the softness of floor of wide wooden boards, emanating heat of red wall painted with red ocher colour, wall charged by sun and thousands of looks. Touch the wood, brick wall. Crack on a wall. Take a step. Find a new, once hidden detail, now revealed. Let your eyes and camera find what needed to be found, what has been left. Rain. All colors have been changed, surfaces are from another world. Colors are muted, but running water on a window glass makes beautiful reflections, patterns, and reformatted images. Bubbles inside an old glass and uneven surface make you feel comfortable. Not only humans are not perfectly formed, but the skin of the environment has also its own, personal marks. When my skin gets older, so does surfaces. Wet. Suddenly you notice all the colors that wet stone possesses. Colors are there, all little rainbows, and water has brought them to for you to sense. The wet floor on an old stable has darker tones than the sun-dried wall. The dust has taken shelter, nestled against bums of wood. Dust doesn’t want to fly with a gust of air, raised by the suddenly opened door. Rather it behaves and looks different than when the dust is dry. In here horseshoes have sculpted the floor, with love and time, and now it is like a surface of a rare planet. Traces of work are all visible, tool marks on wood, like signatures on a white paper. Cold. It's so silent. Metal has dim power on cold weather, and to touch metal gives you chills. Rust flakes now have companions; small ice crystals are next to each other with rust, making the environment sparkling and glimmering. Light has changed, the mood is different. A story has a new tone. When I am seeing, touching and taking photos of surfaces and textures, it is like touching and noticing common skin of all beings, our shared environmental heritage. Not all material has the power to preserve our memory and life events so well. Already lived places, seasoned buildings and surfaces have certain power and quality, almost like your touch is a needle and texture a vinyl record. Observe, notice and touch, and reveal the music of the lived environment, people who have been here. With my camera, I try to find and catch this music. I let the objective and light be the needle, which dances on the topography of surfaces. The preserved surrounding is our common memory bank, we can’t lose it, or we lose a big part of ourselves. With the camera and as a photographer I try to collect what is possible to collect and share and remind viewers about this unique treasure. All of us have favorite places and buildings, traces, houses, and secret childhood dens. We feel and sense deeply all aspects of the environment. Constructed, preserved or found surfaces are part of our skin, the skin of environmental heritage. We should save what we can, preserve what is already part of our shared story, built heritage, and invite those who are new in this particular area to our story, via surfaces, textures, and buildings. All this helps us to remember: there have been others before us, we are part of a longer story - and there will be others when we are already left. I started to shoot built and preserved environment's textures at Piiru, Tampere Region Built Heritage Centre, in Pispala, Finland, in summer 2019 when starting my apprenticeship training there. I was immediately spellbound of the preserved surfaces there. Carefully renovated old mansion was, and is, a treasure of environmental heritage. I will continue my mission to notice and record more and to specialize myself as a "photographer of traces". To shoot a story of our shared skin of environmental heritage. I appreciate beauty, art and minute details, and I value small things around us. Working as a photographer my aim is to notice, share and remind of those little, but meaningful traces around us, in our environment and built surrounding. Also, one of my specialties is to capture the feelings of the fantastic Pispala region, where I live. My Pispala, full of unique buildings, people and nature. As a visual artist and graphical designer, I try to find the best media and mixture of tools to achieve rich communication between message, textures, visual elements, and receiver. As an artist, my purpose is to provide and make an abundance of mental images, awakened impressions and memories through photography, graphic design, and visual arts. Photos give birth to strong impressions and images, and these impressions become seeds of visual art and concepts, photographic experiments, and even performances of butoh dance. As a human and fellow man, my wish is to remind you, and me, about the importance to belong to this place, right now, regardless of what we have already lost, or left behind. That our shared heritage can start at this very moment, we are part of that. We just have to notice and appreciate, and touch. With all our senses and gentleness.

Everyone has a story about the place they are living now, or that they have left behind. Constructed, preserved or found surfaces are part of our skin, the skin of environmental heritage in Europe. We should save what we can, preserve what is already part of our shared story, built heritage, and invite those who are new in this particular area to our story, via surfaces, textures, and buildings. All this helps us to remember: there have been others before us, we are part of a longer story - and there will be others when we are already left.