My current research explores the role of nature within the cityspace, where I have a particular interest in constructed landscapes.  I have studied this in several bodies of work which have been published and exhibited amongst others at the offices of the Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell for the Department of Culture Media and Sport and in a publication entitled 'A Small Book of Trees' published in 2007 with the aid of a grant from Arts Council of South West Finland.

I received BA (Joint Honours) in Fine art with Philosophy from the Middlesex University and graduated with a Masters in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2002. For the last five years in addition to a fractional post at UEL I also wrote and led a  Photography Foundation Degree with a BA top up year. Prior to working as a lecturer I have worked in various roles in the photography industry from black & white printer and retoucher and scanning assistant to a photography technician. 

I am currently a 0.6 lecturer at UEL as well as working on my research.

http://www.minnakantonen.co.uk/

Level 3 Photography Module Leader and personal tutor.

Level 2 Professional Practice Module Leader

There is often an element of playfulness present in my work. In Line of Height, photographed in the UK and Finland, the title refers to the employees that inhabit the spaces. Arranged from shortest to tallest, the images capture the strange conformation that is embodied between the individual and the institution. In A Small Book of Trees, groups of trees take centre stage and become the main characters within the images. Distanced from nature, our experiences of large cities, such as London, are largely based on the landscape of constructed environment. I am interested in the role of nature in our society and culture, especially within the built environment; nature as amenity. Investigating and responding to these concerns my work includes the series Urban Vistas, which is a collection of urban trees that consists of images captured in Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Helsinki and London.

BA (Hons) Photography, BA (Hons) Graphic Design

• DV3300
• DV2040

Selected shows/publications within the last two years:

• 2012 BPB and Photobook Show, Jubilee Library, Brighton Photo Biennial (Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space), Brighton, UK

  THE (JOLLY) GOOD SHOW : Light and shade in contemporary practice, COLLYER BRISTOW GALLERY, London, 22 September- 1 December 2010 (curated by Day+Gluckman)

• Photographie issue 4, 2010 (German Publication), accompanied by text by Ute Noll (curated by Ute Noll)

A Small Book of Trees; by Minna Kantonen. Publisher: The Leicester City Gallery/Artist, ISBN 978-0-9554095-2-3, 2007 (Part funded by Arts Council of South West Finland).

'The trees in Minna Kantonen’s photographs blend in yet do not quite seem to fit within their urban environments. Unnatural nature that fails to fulfil its role as an opposite of culture. Like weeds they fill the gaps that haunt the order, and give us a glimpse of another reality or an alternative way to dwell in a city. They live their own time in the streets, frail and mortal next to the buildings, timeless compared to the constant movement. As silent witnesses they measure the temporal rhythms of both the individuals and the society.’   

Taru Elfving (Finland/UK)

'In their critique of capitalism and schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari write, ‘We’re tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They’ve made us suffer too much.’ The attack is not on trees per se but on a model of organisation borrowed from their essential form. An organisational structure, it is argued, deeply implicated in the furtherance and expression of capitalism. Given such a perspective, this work can be interpreted as the framing of the pattern (the tree) within the material reality it generates (the city). An interpretation that’s true, whether we’re witnessing the neatest of arboreal choreography in London’s financial districts or more

lacklustre configurations in the suburbs. It’s a juxtaposition occasioned by, what is often, the cynical tokenism of architects and town planners alike. The planting of trees in an urban context often being little more than soft ornamentation; an ornamentation that softens urban linearity but masks the lack of genuine thought and care for the environment. The tree, one could argue, is implicated in every aspect of this work: present as natural specimen, invisible substructure and cynical decoy. When a sign announces a new business park as ‘a productive working environment’ one should expect to find it surrounded by trees and newly blooming shrubbery.

Such a deconstruction may be valid but ultimately betrays the sensibility that informs this work. For Kantonen, one senses, these images mark affectionate encounters. The politics, as such, are personal. These are places befriended and returned to several times. Returned to in order to achieve an appropriate proximity and for the possibility of an image to emerge. The manner of address is always appreciative: avoiding too strong an insistence on significance or proffering a politically correcting lamentation. The subtlety of this work lies in making a significance possible without betraying the localised reality of such a claim: an ambient indifference frames this appreciation. For those who know these locales will probably never have experienced them in this way. It’s possible therefore, that ones’ navigation of the urban environment will change because of this work. But the images themselves remain, I suggest, highly personal. Capturing moments that perhaps recall the photographer’s native Finland. Each tree constellation having a different emotional register. They are testament to temporary reprieves into a past world. Offering, to the receptive, a different formal and temporal realm.'

Paul Tebbs (UK)

www.minnakantonen.co.uk

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