If Nokia were a place...

In 2001 Nokia was within the five leading global brands. Not even Disney's spell could overcome Mobile Nokia's. Yet, the industrial town in Pirkanmaa (near Tampere) in Finland bearing the same name seemed to have stayed in a shade of international consciousness. Hence, I decided to study the not-so-well-known. I set myself for a photography project in the Nokia city, looking for a red line that would connect the two namesakes. Obviously, the two had shared a significant history during Finnish chimney-industrialism.

I soon learned that the manor house owned by Nokia Corporate – along with hunting ground licenses and a share in the car tire factory – was one of the few remaining ties. I was staring at the gap opening in front of my eyes: a gap between the mental imagery of Nokia Corporate and the true scruffy life of the Nokia Industrial City. In my mind the two Nokias were connected by their immense dissimilarity. A bit later later my teenager son told me about his Helsinki-dweller friends, who had never heard that such a city exists! Had I begun photographing a vanished city?

I photographed during 2001-04. I wanted to stay as an outsider but to get close. This can be best done when people congregate together anyway. With my camera I diluted myself into the schlager whirl and the smoke flavoured night of the Roasted Pig Ball, I was tacking about in a moose-hunt, in common-mans rally and a sweaty Thursday night of Nokia Mission.


Henrik Duncker

I would like to thank Martin Parr for suggesting I do something in Nokia city.