Good Feelings Every Day by Juliana Irene Smith

Good Feelings Every Day. Juliana Irene Smith noticed those four words in early 2020, as she was walking through Helsinki, the city she now calls home. She snapped a photo of the Karaoke bar window and kept going.

GFED became her mantra, a little bit of optimism. Smith started to use the term for a body of photographic works – in her other artworks the words are less sentimental. The play and use of humor with often violent words makes space to acknowledge the pain as well as taking ownership of crass harmful sentiments. Get looser loser… Dirty whore likes meat… Anxiety you bitch, sad fuck, flower fucker, dumb itch, bye bad man, scream, vomit pussy, the sun is dead, and miso soup and tears… Those are words she knows – they stem from lived experience. “The evil handsy step-father and a narcissistic oblivious mother still haunt me. I hope that this work acts as a form of solidarity to those with similar histories”, Smith underscores. Goodbye fuckers.

The book offers an intimate look into a foreign family’s life in Finland. It's not just smiles and birthday presents, but also vulnerability. A Yashica 35mm film camera accompanies her and her family as they make their way in Finland and the good feelings. It is a distant cry from the California past that she fled at the age of sixteen. Finland is where Smith came to understand what it means not only to be at home, but to feel at home. Still, it’s not about a place. It’s about moving forward – a visual narrative of daily life: not always good feelings every day, but sometimes, it is.

Juliana Irene Smith is a California-born, half Iranian artist who has been living and working in Finland for nearly a decade.