Saana Wang
Saana Wang (b. 1979 Helsinki) is a Finnish fine art photographer. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2004, the Photo Global Program in the School of Visual Arts, in New York, and the Aalto University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland.
In her photographs, Saana Wang depicts the changing of social structure and city urbanization in modern China. Saana Wang uses the masks of the traditional Beijing opera to transform the local Chinese residents into fictional characters. As a decisive step towards defamiliarization, she turns the people's spare living rooms into a stage. Saana Wang conveys multilayered reality that express structures of power as well as tensions between the different elements in the picture.
Saana Wang has had exhibitions in New York, USA, European countries such as Finland, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, as well as East Asia. Saana Wang won the International Photography Prize International Talent Support - Photo Award 2009. Saana Wang is part of the “photographic movement The Helsinki School”. She is often invited to participate panel discussions in institutions such as The American-Scandinavian Foundation ( known as Scandinavian House ) in Manhattan, NY.
Saana Wang lives and works in New York City.