2022, Finland

The image is part of series titled Almost All the Flowers in My Mother's Garden, first published as a book with the same name. The series was my attempt to photograph all the flowers my mother grows in her garden in the Southeast of Finland.

The series examines the complex relationships between mothers and daughters through images and text. The series contains more than 100 pictures of flowers  and intimate memories of mothers I have collected from anonymous daughters. In Finnish the same verb can be used for implying “to grow” or “to raise”; you don’t raise daughters, you grow them. In a way, the flowers my mother has planted, grown, and cared for start to symbolize the daughters, each being beautiful, individual living creatures.