Der Greif X MPB: Behind the Image with Lumi Tuomi
On June 8th we hosted a “Der Greif X MPB: Behind the Image” Instagram Live with artist Lumi Tuomi. Lumi Tuomi, the recipient of our Guest Room Scholarship for Guest Room: Bindi Vora gave us an in-depth look into their practice and the series "Tied Together". Here we are sharing more images from the series and insights into the project.
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Lumi Tuomi is a Finnish-Karelian visual artist based in Finland, working with photography, video, and hair-based works.
Their interest lies in stories that are unseen and hidden, unveiling intricate questions about representations of hair loss, gender, human’s relationship with nature, and cultural heritage. Tuomi’s practice investigates connections to our environments, memory, and each other, that are kept within our hair. They use hair as a material and a storyteller, weaving their work into a physical archive of relationships, persistence, and acts of care.
Tied Together
Lumi Tuomi’s series “Tied Together” is an ongoing body of work, portraying an intimate perspective on the world of hair loss.
In their works, Tuomi examines the entanglement of gender and hair, by breaking down and redefining representations of women’s hair loss.
Tuomi’s melancholic self-portraits collide with the empathetic gaze and presence of the hair loss community, in serene landscape photographs. The works are simultaneously documents of present moments and constructions of an alternate future.
They raise questions of how hair loss is perceived and represented in society, as well as, from whose perspective the representations are produced.
The photographs invite us to question how intertwined we are with our hair and the norms associated with it. How do hair and hair loss bring us together and separates us?
Artist Biography
Lumi Tuomi graduated from the photography department of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in 2021. Their works have been exhibited in Amos Rex Generation 2017 and Generation 2020 exhibitions, Tampere Film Festival, and The Grey Space In The Middle gallery. Tuomi’s first solo exhibition Unveil was exhibited at Galleria Rajatila in April 2023.