Some subjectively chosen facts and explanations about me and my activities. I was born in Haapsalu. The event took place in this wooden functionalist house, which then functioned as a maternity hospital. I attended Audru school for my first 8 classes. My free time was spent in the reading room of Pärnu Rüütli street or fishing by the Audru river.
In 1997, I went to Tartu Art School to study photography. During my studies, the school became Tartu Higher Art School, which today bears the name of Pallas. I named my diploma work “Shift” (Diploma supervisors: Vallo Kalamees and Teet Papson). I covered wooden boards of the usual kitchen table size with liquid emulsion and exposed them to repro shots of my home kitchen table (top view) as excerpts from the era. I presented the wooden boards as tables and displayed them on the gallery wall. The transparency created by the emulsion emphasized temporality.
Photo: Exhibition “Shift” at Sebra Gallery (2001)
In 2019, I went to study in the semiotics department of the University of Tartu. My master’s thesis was titled “Soundscapes: The Interaction of Photo and Sound through the Technique of Defamiliarization”. (Supervisors Timo Maran and Nelly Mäekivi). For my research object, I created an exhibition “The Sounds of the Place. Landscape Photos with Sound”.
I think that humans are largely visual beings and they hear what they see. But with my work on sounds of place, I want to draw attention to the importance of soundscapes. As a technical technique, to make the viewer focus on the landscape, I have used (still) photo and mostly central composition.
My assumption is that if the viewer asks themselves the question, how does this landscape sound like, it also stimulates their imagination, because unlike video, the photo does not tell why the sound is the way it is. And that is the moment when the otherwise documentary work becomes an artistic work.
Photo: Exhibition “The Sounds of the Place. Landscape Photos with Sound” at the University of Tartu Library (2023)
Since 2001, when I graduated from Tartu Art College, I have been working as a photo studio master and lecturer at Pallas. Studio photography, portrait and architectural photography are the subjects I teach.
Since 2013, I have been working as a field recordist. I have made my work in this field available on Bandcamp at Music | Andrus Kannel (bandcamp.com)
Contact me at andrus.kannel@gmail.com
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