The characters in Juha Arvid Helminen‘s “The Invisible Empire” series are prisoners of their uniforms and traditions. People wear clothes described by religion, profession, political thoughts and tradition to communicate and represent authority, where they belong and how they see the world.
Often this hides their true persona and creates walls between themselves and between the people they meet. How close can we, the viewers, get to the characters that have so much of their personality taken away from?
Uniforms create unity and through them we can separate a soldier from a civilian. But they can also hide people when they do something that is really bad. In 2006 Helminen witnessed the so called Smash ASEM “riot”. There he personally saw the dark side of the Finnish police. Later he witnessed the reluctance of the justice system to punish those in uniforms.
Juha Arvid Helminen lives and works currently in Lahti, Finland. Helminen graduated in 2011 with an MA from the Institute of Design and Fine Arts in Lahti with a major in photography. His work has been included in group exhibitions in Finland as well as Columbia, Nepal, France, Germany and the USA.
Images courtesy of Juha Arvid Helminen
Discover: www.juhaarvidhelminen.com
