Kenneth Bamberg

I started this work in 2008 when I was living in Kallio, the working class neighbourhood of Helsinki. I lived right next to an old public sauna. The regulars and owners became friends of mine and one day I brought my camera to the locker room.
These photographs were made in in public sauna dressing rooms in Russia, Ukraine and Finland. When doing these I am usually attracted by something in a man’s appearance, something about his character. Later, when we come out from the sauna, I ask him to redo the same pose he first showed in the sauna. We make the photo, and he does his best to recreate the reality he showed earlier.