On Saturday, July 24, at 8:00 p.m. in the Dance Hall, the Finn Camp will be honored to have Vesa Oja, presenting some of his work at a special event slideshow and talk. Mr. Oja has worked as a photojournalist for the leading Finnish national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, since 1978.
Mr. Oja is visiting the United States gathering material for a major photography project with the title of Finglish—Photographs of Finns in North America. The full project includes a book, a photo exhibition and a Web site that will document through photographs, videos and interview material the experiences of Finns in North America. In a previous photo book, Toinen Eurooppa (The Other Europe) Mr. Oja documented the disintegration of socialism in eastern Europe and the civil wars in the Balkans.
During the years 2004 to 2009, Vesa Oja spent a total of a full year on tour photographing the United States and Canada under grants from the Finlandia Foundation National, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, the Patricia Seppälä Foundation and the Institute of Migration, as well as an Eero Erkko scholarship. During his travels, the author has visited the most important regions with Finnish inhabitants on the North American continent, from Sointula on Vancouver Island to Florida, meeting hundreds of descendants of Finnish immigrants. —Sponsored by Newsletter/Web site Committee