Probable Cause

A research-based documentary exploring a hit-and-run that took place in Helsinki, Finland in early 2012. On the level of form, the work explores and questions conventions of documentary photography.

My sister was killed by a drunk driver in early 2012. This event changed everything for me and my family, cutting our lives into a before and an after. While we were learning to deal with loss, the event created a great discussion in the national media regarding drunk driving and alcoholism.

Probable Cause is a research-based project into the events of that day, the factors behind them and the effects they produced in Finnish society. Through a combination of images and text the work builds a documentary narrative of the perpetrator on the day of the hit-and-run. This narrative shines a light on social factors behind the event that rarely come up in public discussion regarding drunk driving and alcoholism in Finnish society, taking a look at enabling factors behind alcoholism and the perception of addiction.

On the level of form, the work aims to construct what art historian Sophie Berrebi has called the dialectical document. The images question the conventions of documentary photography and deconstruct some of its inherent power relations that are rooted in aesthetics and methodology. The images are created by different means, such as documenting scenes of events, staged photography and appropriating media and police photographs. Some of the scenes seen in the images are places linked to the crime, others are replaced by similar places. Some of the persons seen in the images are original persons re-enacting the events, others are replaced by actors.