Culture is full of so called binary thinking or dichotomies, like nature / culture, man / woman, high art / Kitsch, black / white, sun / moon, intelligible /sensitive, Father / Mother. We can say that culture “develops” when it tries to find the third way and lighten the burden of oppositions.

Kuukka is presently mostly known as a sports specialist and he has covered e.g. the last six Olympic Games. He has been awarded several times for his work – and during the past six years he has focused more and more on multimedia storytelling.

Photo: Johanna Karttunen

In addition to Kuukka’s own photography, he teaches photography, video and multimedia storytelling in three different universities. He is also well known for his writing and public stance defending photographers and their right to maintain the copyright of their own work – as more and more publishers are very aggressively pushing the “exclusive rights to the publisher” -deals to freelancers.

Kuukka works independently as a freelancer and manages his own multimedia company – the first of its kind in Finland.

Johanna Vehkoo is a freelance journalist who is learning how to be a journalism start-up entrepeneur. She gives talks about slow journalism, specialization, open journalism, and other things she thinks are a significant part of the profession’s future.

Photo: Mervi Ahlroth

 
Vehkoo is the editor of Long Play, a new publisher of longform journalism as digital singles, and a co-founder of Hacks/Hackers Helsinki. Johanna is also a freelance writer and author of the book Stop the Press! Tales from the Era of New Journalism (published in Finnish in September 2011). She has done research on the concept of quality in journalism, online journalism start-ups, and crowdsourcing in investigative journalism. She spent 2009–2011 as a Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

Prior to her freelance career, Johanna worked as literary editor at the culture department of the newspaper Aamulehti.

Vehkoo writes on her blog: ”I give talks and seminars about all things future-of-journalism and teach journos about crowdsourcing and digital fact-checking, among other things. As a freelance journalist, I tend to write mostly about media, technology and culture.”

Photo: Lauri Mannermaa

A personal voice

Laurén represents the new generation which speaks straight without fear or prejudice. She finds reasons for things in Russia that seems incomprehensible for a foreigner. Her work has been awarded with a number of prizes, among others the State information prize of Finland 2010.

Awarded books

Laurén has written a number of books about Russia, but is most known for three of them. In De är inte kloka, de där ryssarna (“They’re Not All There, Those Russians”) Laurén sketches lively with gentle humour and great empathy a recognizable image of the contemporary Russia. I bergen finns inga herrar  (“In The Mountains There Are No Masters”) about Caucasus and its multifaceted cultures is written with journalistic expertise, insight and love, which also have become Laurén’s trademark. Sedan jag kom till Moskva (“Since I Came To Moscow”) is a personal and openhearted book of her life in Moscow.

Russian correspondent

Since 2010 Laurén has been a regular contributor to the editorials page of the Swedish language Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet. She has also worked as the Russian correspondent for this newspaper and the Finnish public radio service YLE, and as the Finnish correspondent for the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet. Laurén now works as a Moscow correspondent for Hufvudstadsbladet.

CDDHR is an independent Russian non-governmental organization based in the capital Moscow. It is one of the leading Russian independent think tanks dealing with issues such as the strengthening of civil society and promoting human rights and democracy. The Centre’s mission is to strengthen the Russian NGO community by providing support to NGO coalitions, organizing campaigns, monitoring and analyzing the current human rights situation, and providing the state authorities and government representatives with expert recommendations.

Since 2005, Kalikh has advocated for the human rights of military servicemen. Currently he is focusing his efforts on the improvement of the legal status of soldiers, as well as corruption and its negative impact on human rights.

Oksana Chelysheva is a Russian journalist and human rights defender. Since 2003 she has been covering the situation in the North Caucasus being the editor of the Russian-Chechen Information Agency established by the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. After the organization was banned in Russia, being one of the first victims of the anti-extremism legislation, the work has continued by moving the legal entity of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society to Finland.

Photo: Maris Morkans

In 2008 Chelysheva had to stay in Finland, due to the never-ending threats. She has been contributing to Novaya Gazeta, Svobodnaya Pressa, kasparov.ru as a journalist covering a broad range of HR problems starting from the right of the people for the cultural and architectural heritage, to the situation in the armed conflict-affected North Caucasus as well as politically motivated reprisals against NGOs and activists of the movements in opposition to the Kremlin.

Chelysheva is the author of the book “I have been followed in the streets” published in Finland by INTO in 2013 and a co-author of the “International Tribunal for Chechnya” legal study published in 2009 by Sputnik Oy in Finland.

You can read more about Oksana Chelysheva in an article on the upcoming Reporter Without Borders branch in Finland.

Photo: Kirill Reznik

In October 2012 by the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland Kopylova was officially commenting on the so called custody arguments between Russia and Finland concerning the case of Anastasia Zavgorodnyaya.

Photo: Petteri Paalasmaa

Koponen is a former correspondent for Finnish Broadcasting Company in Soviet Union and Russia and a diplomat. He worked as a Press Councillor at the Finnish Embassy in Moscow in 1994-1999. Currently Koponen is also a producer for the web pages of the online newspaper Uusi Suomi. Under the old daily newspaper trade mark they publish blogs and news.

Koponen is preparing his PhD thesis in History about the propaganda war of Russia and Georgia.

Koponen has on his blog published the basis for his lecture “Krigarna i de ryska medierna” for the seminar Mediespråk in Vaasa.

Michael Hutchinson-Reis’ career started in community work in London and soon developed during the 1980’s into becoming a specialist professional in the U.K’s criminal justice system. From 1987 he worked as a political policy researcher and adviser, local government police monitoring unit manager, NPS Public Protection unit manager, lecturer, writer and journalist in London.

MHR has now worked continually as a visiting and full time university lecturer in British, Finnish and Estonian universities and Police colleges since 1984. At present he teaches police, military and security degree students and professionals in managing cross-cultural conflict and degree social work and health students and professionals on “acculturation”, social inclusion theory and practice, media literacy and managing diversity issues in the media. He has published numerous written reports and articles on multicultural issues, civil disorder and community conflict since 1985 and has directed and filmed several documentaries for YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.

MHR is a member of the Icebreaker Productions cooperative in Helsinki Finland. He is at present researching and developing an investigative documentary project which looks at the recent rioting by young people, many of so called “immigrant” backgrounds, in various cities in the UK, France and Sweden and if it could happen in Finland. He also has a photographic exhibition scheduled for showing around Finland and the UK by Multicultural Finland during 2013. The exhibition addresses his own use of photography as a means of integration and acculturation in a new environment.