Featured Artist: Dina Kantor

In January 2006 I began photographing the members of the small Jewish community in Finland. In addition to being a visual record, the images function as a sociological document exploring how Finnish Jews live, work and practice their religious traditions.

How does Judaism survive in a country where there are only two synagogues? In a nation of 5.3 million people, how do 1,500 Jews maintain their cultural identity; how do they have a voice?

This project is of personal significance. My mother was born in Salo, Finland and moved to Minnesota as a child in 1947. Almost thirty years later, when she married my father (a Jew of Polish/Russian heritage), she converted to Judaism. What does it mean that my blood is both Finnish and Jewish? What does it mean to be a part of the minimal Finnish-Jewish population?

Finland is 84% Lutheran, compared to 0.18% Muslim and 0.02% Jewish. Of the estimated 1,500 Jews living in Finland, about 1,200 live in Helsinki, 200 in Turku, and 50 in Tampere. There is one synagogue in Helsinki, and one in Turku. Both are Ashkenazi-Orthodox, and were built respectively in 1906 and 1912. A third synagogue, in Vyborg, was burned down during World War II.

With these pictures, I am investigating the ways photography contributes to the construction of identity and community. Today’s society is increasingly complex and multi-cultural. As our heritages blend, our identities are no longer definable by a generic social stereotype of community, but by our unique experiences and backgrounds. By examining each individual separately, the viewer gains a better understanding of the whole. Photography has an intrinsic ability to record details. I am employing it to record cultural signifiers and traditions as they blend, as well as to depict physical characteristics of a hybridized community. I am also creating a permanent visual record of this community at a specific time and place.

Each photograph is an invitation from the subject to both me, the photographer, and to you, the viewer. We’re invited to learn about this community, to enter their homes and see how they live, to share the experience of being Jewish in Finland today. Some people seem to be more welcoming than others. Some seem to doubt and question the viewers’ interest. And some don’t seem to be aware that we are there.

See more of Dina's work on her website.