Jaakko Heikkilä born in 1956, has been described as an artist a conversationalist and wanderer, a timeless drifter who likes meeting people and depict them with empathy, respectful warmth.
He graduated as an Engineer from the University of Oulu in 1983, and was a researcher at the Academy of Finland until the end of 1989. Since 1990 he has been independet photographic artist.
Almost by change, Heikkilä’s themes have settled on minority people and populations, those who are outsiders in one way or another as well as those caught under the wheels of change: the Armenians in Armenia and in Diaspora, the Pomors of the shores of the White Sea in Russia, the Vlach people of Serbia, the Karelians of Finland and Russia, the black population of Harlem in New York, the new puplic houses community on the Island of Itaparica in Brazil, the people of Havana Centro in Havana. His photographs often contain nostalgia for a lost world as well as warm humour.
He has had private and group exhibitions in many European countries, the USA and South America, e.g. at the Venice Biennale in 2005.
