The opening speech I wrote for the exhibition:

Good evening, everyone, and a very warm welcome to the opening of the TOIVO exhibition.

It’s wonderful to see you all here today, and thank you for coming to share this moment with us.

This exhibition is a joint project by ten photography students who are about to graduate from Gradia. Photography is what brings us together, but each of us has our own way of seeing the world and our own way of telling stories through our images.

When we chose hope as the theme for this exhibition, it felt both incredibly simple and enormously complex at the same time. What exactly is hope?

It can be something big the belief that we can get through difficult times, or that things might be better in the future. But perhaps more often, hope is found in much smaller things.

It can be another person. A glance. A touch. A light in a dark forest. A memory of something important. The thought that something good might happen tomorrow.

Sometimes hope is strong and clearly visible. Sometimes it is almost impossible to notice. And sometimes we really have to search for it.

In this exhibition, that one word — hope — has been given ten different interpretations.

When you look around, you quickly realize that this exhibition doesn’t offer a single answer to what hope looks like. And I think that’s exactly how it should be.

We didn’t want to tell the viewer what hope is. Instead, we want to ask: What does hope mean to you? Where do you find hope?

The theme feels especially relevant in today’s world, where there is so much uncertainty around us. In the news and in our everyday lives, we often encounter things that make it difficult to feel confident about the future.

For us as photographers, this moment also marks the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

We are about to graduate as professional photographers. After that, each of us will follow a slightly different path, and none of us knows exactly what the future will bring. In that sense, the name of this exhibition feels particularly fitting.

Creating art and photography involves a great deal of uncertainty, but it also involves an enormous amount of hope.

Every new photograph begins with the thought that something meaningful might come from it. Every project begins with a decision to try.

I want to thank everyone who has been involved in making this exhibition possible, and everyone who has supported us along the way.

A special thank you to Mikko, Simo, and everyone at Gradia who have helped and guided us throughout our studies and during the preparation of this exhibition.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge all the members of our exhibition group:

Sonja Poikolainen, Martti Koskinen, Samuli Lindström, Monica Hautaniemi, Anni Ilves, Jukka Rastas, Antti Makkonen, Juuli Piironen, Anne Välimäki, and Miikka Liimatainen.

Creating this exhibition together has been part of the journey we have shared as students, a journey that has brought us to this point.

We still have a few final assessments to complete before graduation, but tonight we already have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of our work through this exhibition.

One of the wonderful things about photography is that once a photograph is hung on a wall, it no longer belongs solely to the photographer.

Every viewer brings their own experiences, memories, and thoughts to it.

That’s why I hope that tonight you won’t simply look at the photographs, but that you’ll take a moment to pause and reflect on them.

We all deserve a little bit of hope in our lives.

Thank you all for being here!

I wish you all a wonderful and enjoyable opening evening!

In this first version, I began observing and exploring the tension between what the audience sees or is shown at fight events, and how these events are experienced from within the Combat sports community.