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The Jouko Lehtola Foundation has awarded the Young Hero Grant, which promotes documentary photography, to Antti Sepponen from Lahti. This year’s recipient was chosen from among ten candidates by film director Virpi Suutari, who explains her choice as follows:
“Antti Sepponen photographs the ordinary in an extraordinary way. Beneath the everyday surfaces, something strange and invisible emerges — something we recognize. Through his unconventional framing and raw use of light, he reveals what lies hidden under the mundane: human silence and loneliness. Sepponen’s images are disorienting. They make us see more closely the people around us and the stages on which we try to survive. In Sepponen’s photographs there is ugliness and roughness, but also a generous measure of humor and love.”
This year, the Young Hero was selected in collaboration with the Union of Artist Photographers in Finland. The award carries a prize sum of 5,000 euros.
Antti Sepponen’s exhibition will be on view at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki from 28 November to 21 December 2025.