Paola Ivana Suhonen is a Helsinki born designer, artist and filmmaker. Suhonen lived in New York for two years, where she studied for a year at the New York Film Academy. In the fall of 2010, she moved to Los Angeles and studied photography at the American Film Institute.

Southern boys, southern girls photo series is comprised of atmospheric snapshots featuring four randomly found young people from Tennessee: Dylan, Dillon, Cassidy, and Claire. They had
not met each other before filming. The works have been filmed in a small town in
the conservative South of the United States, where religion continues to define
attitudes related to the body and to sexuality. The people seen in the photos are
framed as underliningly innocent in a serene setting, where their youthful wishes for
experimentation might not find a space.
The handmade wet plate collodion photos have been shot on a road trip in North
America. The darkroom was sometimes built in the back of the car, and sometimes
in a motel bathtub, or a tent. The most important feature in this technique is its
unpredictability, a feeling of a process, and the mistakes brought into the image
through the process itself.
Filming location: Hendersonville, Goodlettsville, Tennessee, USA
Production collaborator: Joel Jägerroo

2016

photography and film

wet plate collodion photo, medium format film

16mm film, 10 min