Patricia Seppälä Foundation to provide support to the Finnish Heritage Agency's Press Photo Archive

The Patricia Seppälä Foundation has granted a support of EUR 36,000 for the digitalisation of the collections in the Press Photo Archive of the Picture Collections of the Finnish Heritage Agency. Between 2022 and 2024, JOKA will receive EUR 12,000 a year, the use of which can be decided independently by JOKA. The aim of the cooperation is to make the Finnish journalistic, documentary and photojournalistic collections in the Press Photo Archive available to increasingly more users.

In 2022, JOKA will use this support to get an idea of the content of Nasakuva Oy's photo collection and to create a sample collection of 100 images. Press photographer Räshid Nasretdin (1920-2010) had a photo shop and studio Nasakuva Oy in Helsinki from 1948 to 1989. Nasa’s photos were published in magazines such as Suomen Kuvalehti, Viikkosanomat, Seura, Apu and Tekniikan Maailma. The collection contains tens of thousands of photos of historical events. In one of Nasretdin's best-known photos, Paavo Nurmi lights the Olympic flame in 1952. The heirs handed over Nasakuva’s collection to JOKA in 2021.

The latest collection added to the Press Photo Archive is the one consisting of the photos by press photographer Heikki Y. Rissanen (1942-2016), from which 200 magazine photos will be selected and digitised with the support from the Patricia Seppälä Foundation. Rissanen first photographed for the Hymy magazine and later, for example, for Seura and Suomen Kuvalehti, both magazines belonging to Yhtyneet Kuvalehdet Group. Rissanen often accompanied President Urho Kekkonen on his visits abroad, for example, to Mexico, Brazil and Sweden. Rissanen is in fact well known for his magazine photos of President Kekkonen.

Magazine photos digitised with the support from the Patricia Seppälä Foundation will be captioned and published in Finna, a joint service of museums, archives and libraries.

"JOKA is a living treasure of Finnish magazine photos. It is a pleasure to be involved in contributing to the building up of such a treasure and making it available for purposes that are as diversified as possible,” says Pekka Seppänen, Chairman of the Board of the Patricia Seppälä Foundation.

"The support from the Patricia Seppälä Foundation is a friendly gesture that will help JOKA to conduct its work on collections on a long-term basis, thereby bringing the gems of photojournalism available to everyone," says Inkamaija Iitiä, JOKA’s Intendant.

The Patricia Seppälä Foundation promotes photojournalism, magazine photography and documentary photography, awarding annual grants to individuals and business operators. The foundation also grants the Patricia Seppälä Foundation Photojournalism Award, the most prestigious award of its kind in Finland.

Established in 2014, the Press Photo Archive JOKA was included in the Finnish Heritage Agency’s Picture Collections. JOKA maintains, digitises and publishes collections of key photographers, newspapers and magazines, taking care of storing the history of Finnish photojournalism. JOKA’s collections include 15 million magazine photographs, approximately 17,000 of which have been published in JOKA-Finna.

Further information:

Patricia Seppälä Foundation: Executive officer Paula Arvas, tel. +358 44 5866144, paula.arvas@patriciaseppalansaatio.fi

Press Photo Archive JOKA of the Finnish Heritage Agency: Curator Raija Linna, tel. +358 295 33 6124, raija.linna@museovirasto.fi