My ongoing postdoc research is about  mainly the Finnish 19th century paintings depicting narrative scenes, such as genre paintings, history paintings and ethnographical scenes. I investigate the similarities of the 19th-century painting genres, narrative forms and content, motifs, subjects, iconography, their social meanings, and influence. A crucial research question is how these paintings each reconstructed events of the past or their contemporary time and how they have contributed to the formation of collective cultural memory. I study their documentation power, ways of creating or reconstructing cultural memory.

I am intrigued by both the visual culture of the past and the present alike, especially the history of emotions, affects and iconography. My particular interest has been the long 19th century. In my PhD I have focused on the late 19th c. and early 20th c. Finnish altarpieces of women artists.

Affiliated with SELMA, the Research centre of storytelling, experientiality and memory.