Mari Mäntynen's exhibition The Jailer's Daughter

What do an apple tree, a human pyramid and a tar pot game have in common? All three

were created in the Kerava prison area as part of Mari Mäntynen's photography and video project that began in 2019.

Visual artist Mari Mäntynen spent her childhood in the Kerava prison area, in her father's

employment apartment. The Jailer's Daughter is a return to familiar surroundings over the years.

Mäntynen now looks at the place as an adult, but wants to retain something of a child's way of looking: curiosity, playfulness and open-mindedness.

In the project, Mäntynen has met former and current prisoners as well as prison employees and

guards. He does not photograph them from the outside, but takes pictures with them and builds situations in which familiar roles can momentarily give way. A human pyramid is created with the prisoners. A former prisoner and a former guard play together. In the prison garden, three people climb different branches of the same apple tree. The apple tree was a great climbing tree for Mäntysen as a child. For another participant in the project, it was a place of work, therapy and learning a new profession during his time in prison. For the third, a gardener and work supervisor, the tree was work and passion. Photographing brought three people to the same tree and enabled an encounter that would not have happened otherwise. "For me as a child, it was just a great climbing tree. Only later did I understand what the same place meant to other people."

In Mäntynen's art, photographing is above all a way to bring people together. She also enjoys working with people who are not part of the art world. When the work is not accompanied by ready-made concepts of what art should be, situations can give rise to something surprising, absurd and common. The exhibition The Jailer's Daughter will feature photographic works and a video work created during the project.

The project has been supported by the Patricia Seppälä Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Arts Promotion Centre (Taike).

Studio Mältinranta, Tampere 19.9.–13.10.2026 Mari Mäntynen (b. 1997) is a Finnish visual artist who works with photography, video and performance. Mäntynen graduated with a Master of Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (2025).

His first solo exhibition was at the Peri Photography Centre gallery in Turku in 2022. His works have been exhibited in group exhibitions at, among others, Vantaa Art Museum Arts and Amos Rex, as well as internationally at the Copenhagen Photo Festival and Fotofestiwal Łódź.

Mäntynen's works can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Finland, the Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva, and private collections.

Mältinranta Artcenter

Opening hours

Tue-Thu 12-18, Fri-Sun 12-16

Kuninkaankatu 2 33210 Tampere