Sirkka-Liisa Roberts (née Konttinen; born in 1948) is a Finnish photographer who has worked in Britain since the 1960s.Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (ed. Andrew Pulver), "Photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's best shot", The Guardian, 12 August 2009. Accessed 11 November 2016. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Tate and the UK Memory of the World Register."2011 UK Memory of the World Register", United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO.
Life and work
Konttinen was born in Myllykoski, municipality of Sippola (from 1975 part of the town of Anjalankoski, from 2009 part of the town of Kouvola), Finland in 1948. Konttinen became interested in photography at the age of 12 and was a member of a photography group in a nearby town. Intending to pursue photography as a career, she was apprenticed to a fashion photographer in Helsinki for a year.David Whetstone, "The fabulous photography of Journal Culture Awards winner Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen", Chronicle Live, 5 May 2016. Accessed 25 July 2020. Konttinen studied photography in London in the 1960s, and cofounded the Amber collective, which moved to the northeast of England in 1969."Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen", Amber Online. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 9 March 2016.
From 1969 Konttinen lived in Byker, and for about a decade photographed and interviewed the residents of this area of terraced houses until her own house was demolished."Byker in Black and White," The New York Times, February 7, 2013 She continued to work there for some time afterwards. This resulted in the book Byker, which in David Alan Mellor's words "bore witness to her intimate embeddedness in the locality".David Alan Mellor, No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection (London: Hayward Publishing, 2007; ), p.84. In 1980 she became the first photographer since the Cultural Revolution to have her work exhibited by the British Council in China.
Konttinen's next project was a study of girls attending dance schools in North Shields, their mothers, and the schools. The book Step by Step came from this. The book was an influence for the film Billy Elliot.
Three years of photographing the beach between Seaham and Hartlepool resulted in the series "Coal Coast".Richard Moss, "Coal Coast: Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen Photos at the Baltic", culture24.org.uk. Accessed 20 February 2010.
Konttinen later returned to Byker and photographed its new residents in colour."Bringing Color to Newcastle," The New York Times, February 8, 2013
Publications Byker. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983. . Byker. Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1985. . Byker. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2022. . Revised and expanded edition.Byker on the publisher's website. Step by Step. Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1989. . Writing in the Sand: On the Beaches of North East England. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2001. . Écrit dans le sable: sur les plages du Nord-Est de l'Angleterre. Paris: Schultz, 2000. . Skrivet i sanden: på sandstränderna i nordöstra England. Stockholm: Schultz Forlag, 2000. . Hiekkaan kirjoitettu: Koillis-Englannin rannoilla. Oulu: Kustantamo Pohjoinen, 2000. . Writing in the Sand: On the Beaches of North East England. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2025. . Revised and expanded edition.Writing in the Sand on the publisher's website. The Coal Coast. Newcastle: Amberside, 2003. . Byker Revisited. Newcastle: Northumberland University Press, 2009. . Thomas Kennedy. Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Tate Photography. London: Tate, 2022. .Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen on the publisher's website.
Exhibitions Documents of the North East (with Graham Smith, James Cleet, and Robert Carling), Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1977"Side Gallery Exhibitions 1977–1994", Amber Online. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 3 March 2016. Photographs from the Beaches (with Markéta Luskačová), Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1978 North Tyneside (with Izabela Jedrzejczyk, Markéta Luskačová and Graham Smith), Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1981 Byker, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1983 Cedarwood Woman, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1988 Step by Step, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1989; touring, 1990, 1992 The Writing in the Sand, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1991; touring 1993 Dream On (with Steve Conlan and Richard Grassick), Side Gallery, Newcastle, 1992 My Finnish Roots, Side Gallery, Newcastle and touring, 1993, 1994 Quayside (with Graham Smith), Side Gallery, Newcastle and touring, 1993 Writing in the Sand, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 2000Side Galery: Past exhibitions, Amber Online. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 14 February 2016. Coalfield Stories (with Dean Chapman, John Davies, Martin Figura, Peter Fryer, Richard Grassick, Sally-Ann Norman, Keth Pattison, Bruce Rae, Chris Steele-Perkins), Side Gallery, Newcastle, 2002/3"Coalfield Stories", Amber Online. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 14 May 2008. Coal Coast, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2003 Coalfield Stories (with John Davies and Simon Norfolk), Photofusion, London, 2005/6"Coalfield Stories" Photofusion, 2005. Accessed 21 February 2010. Byker Revisited, Side Gallery, Newcastle, 2009"Byker Revisited", Reinventing the City. Accessed 21 February 2010. Byker, L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, New York, 2013Konttinen at L. Parker Stephenson Photographs (PDF) Step by Step, L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, New York City, 2017"Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen: Step by Step". L. Parker Stephenson Photographs. Accessed 26 April 2017 Living Cities (with Kader Attia, Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Boris Mikhailov, Marwan Rechmaoui, and Nil Yalter), Tate Modern, London, 2017. Included 17 photographs by Konttinen."Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen: Examine the sometimes intimate record of an inner city community destined for demolition". Tate. Accessed 18 April 2017 Women by Women exhibition curated by Konttinen as part of Idea of North exhibition, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2018
Awards Grand Prix at the Melbourne International Film Festival (1992) for the film The Writing in the Sand."The Writing in the Sand", Dfgdocs. Retrieved 20 February 2010. Prix du Documentaire, Cinéma du Réel, Paris (1992) for the film The Writing in the Sand Honorary Fellowship, The Royal Photographic Society (2024)
Collections Konttinen's work is held in the following permanent collections: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 1 print (as of 6 November 2022) National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: 3 prints (as of 6 November 2022) Tate, UK: 24 prints (as of 6 November 2022) UK Memory of the World Register: Konttinen's photography of the northeast of England from 1969 to 2009, and Amber's related films
Notes
References