Universe and sex, those are the only two topics that people are really interested in, Maija Tammi (Finland) thought. She delved into theories about the origin of life. She made her photos of the Milky Way in her own living room. They look amazing and very …. special.
It is one of life’s big questions: where do we come from? Some people think of Adam and Eve, others of the primordial soup or the Big Bang. But there are other theories, such as Panspermia, which literally means ‘seed everywhere’. These seeds are supposedly the source of all life. Only they do not come from Earth, but from somewhere in outer space, and are spread through the universe by meteorite impacts, among others. Scientists like physicist Stephen Hawking have racked their brains on this theory.
Maija Tammi (Finland, 1985) heard about it when her photographers collective ’11’ chose ‘universe and sex’ as their new theme: ‘the only two topics that people are really interested in’. Tammi took her photos of the Milky Way in her own living room. They are close-ups of mother’s milk and sperm, deposited by her friends on the coffee table and photographed against a black background. ‘Yuck,’ some will think. But doesn’t it look good, and aren’t they just natural materials? The Sambia people in Papua New Guinea believe that people are only containers for the men’s and women’s milk that flows through them. In 2010 Tammi was a Finnish Press Photographer of the Year, nowadays she focuses on her artistic work.