Antti Haapio (born 1964) works as a Senior Lecturer of Photography and Fine Art in Tampere University of Applied Sciences (since 1999). He worked long as a chairman of a board of Photographic Centre Nykyaika and in a team to implement and develop Backlight Photo Festival (1993–2017). Haapio has been an active member in already departed TR1 Kunsthalle Tampere, Finland. Before these art activities he worked as a press photographer and freelancer.
From the beginning of 1990s Haapio has kept solo exhibitions at low incidence. He takes part to group exhibitions conscientiously now and then, if called.
The way Haapio looks the world is an amusement. Fun and games by people generate endless joy but mostly sorrow. These things he turns to some kind of compulsive humoristic expression. Problems of the world are serious and that´s why artist sometimes stays up in nights. It would be possible to have an influence on attitudes of people by art and save the world, but art is in a marginal.
The idiom by Haapio settled down already in his art studies in golden 80s. That is: A simple-thing-against-coloured-background expression. Playing with this language he touches topics from western consumer culture through the pop to pondering of the ontology of time. Currently he is mulling over a relationship of an individual and community.
