Perttu Saksa

During his many travels to the Benin and Togo regions in West Africa, Finnish photographer Perttu Saksa became fascinated by the ubiquitous street-side petrol stalls selling »Kpayo«, low-quality petrol distilled from crude oil stolen from multinational corporations - a pirated product. With a combination of documentary photographs, still lifes, and abstract works, Saksa's Dark Atlas contemplates energy as a structural component of society, localizing it as a physical element on the human level. Oil and petrol become tangible, as become the problems caused by our dependency on fossil fuels. Perttu Saksa (b. 1977) is an award-winning photographic and video artist. His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums around Europe, including Stadtgalerie Kiel, Felleshus Berlin, Finnish Museum of Photography, and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.