MySide: Adam Monaghan

For photographer Adam Monaghan, Suvilahti is not a scene to be extracted or aestheticised, but a place shaped by use, labour, and ongoing negotiation. Once an industrial site on the edge of Helsinki, the area has become a focal point for grassroots culture, while simultaneously facing pressures of redevelopment, branding, and enclosure.

Made over six years, Monaghan’s long-form documentary project follows Suvilahti through a period of rapid and uneven change. Working primarily in 35mm black and white, the photographs move between close portraits and wider views of the site, tracing how people, informal structures, and provisional spaces coexist under the constant threat of removal. Rather than presenting a finished narrative, the work stays with the instability of the moment, recording what is in the process of being reshaped, regulated, or lost.

In this interview, we speak with Monaghan about photographing spaces in transition, the politics of access and gentrification, and why documentary photography matters when working-class and self-organised cultures are increasingly written out of the future.

Side: Suvilahti has a long history as an industrial site before its more recent cultural rebranding. How did that layered history shape the way you approached photographing the area?

Adam Monaghan: From the start, I wanted the project to be as ‘whole’ as I could make it and that meant trying to photograph a bit of ‘everything’; events, businesses, people, architecture, signage, posters … I didn’t want to just make portraits of the skaters or just photograph the graffiti painters or whatever. That would have made it something else, and something that would be removable from the context of the area.

I really feel that nothing is made in a vacuum and everything interacts and seeps across these porous and largely imagined boundaries that we invent. The graffiti effects the bike shop, the towers effect the skate park, the worn bricks and falling plaster effect the feel of the festivals… in positive ways.

Side: Your work sits within a documentary tradition that looks at spaces under transition rather than after the fact. What does working during change allow you to see that might be lost later?

Adam: I guess whichever point you arrive at something there’s always the wish you’d been there earlier. All the stuff you missed and can’t get back. And I suppose that also effects the way you look, or try to look, at what is not going to be there tomorrow or next week. 

Looking across six years of photographs at Suvilahti, little things jump out that were maybe really only passing moments. For example, I love the, possibly unintentional, architectural echo between the tower block tops and the den built on the side of the skate park. The next time I went back, the den had collapsed or been torn down. So I’m glad that the photograph exists and is able to keep making that little high/low architectural pun. 

I think the “transient” things – such as political graffiti or protests – are really very important and crucial to record. It’s so easy for future generations to pretend that “Oh this place was demolished and no one minded and isn’t it all better and glossier now?” When in actual fact there was significant protest and kick back, both in person and commentary. 

Side: There’s a clear movement between portraits and environment in the series. How did you think about authorship and agency when photographing people within a space that is itself being re-authored?

Adam: In terms of my depictions of people, I think it must be seen as a two way relationship. 

From my side, there needs to be an honesty and belief in what I do. I can’t imagine trying to photograph something over a long period that I didn’t care about. I’d just stop. Hopefully that sentiment comes across in how I interact and carry myself and the output I then present. 

As regards my depictions of others, as a rule I would hope I’ve always tried to build a situation where there’s trust. Of course, that might be fleeting or it might be prolonged, depending on the situation. At Suvilahti, I’ve got to know people over the years – and of course, people have got to know me and also of me, even if I don’t know them directly. Which is both interesting and touching. So I think and hope there’s been a lot of acceptance of my presence and my support generally for the people and activities there. 

I’m in complete awe of the crew that are constantly building and improving the skate park – despite the Sword of Damocles that perpetually hangs above it.  It really feels like living in the moment and making the most of a situation for that little window in time that it still exists – I think that’s a deeply admirable quality.

Side: Black and white has a long documentary lineage tied to ideas of seriousness and truth. What conversations were you having with that history through your use of 35mm film?

Adam: Shooting film was absolutely a conscious, if financially perilous, decision. 

I suppose the three guiding elements of it are: the feel of the image, the way it makes me shoot, and the history it aligns itself to. 

Aesthetically, I have no interest in megapixels and being able to see individual eye lashes or the unreal exposures of HDR (or whatever it’s now called). I like the texture that grain has and I like that you can use areas of shadow to compose and direct sight lines. It’s good that some things can be unclear or unseen; a photo can tell a story or reflect a moment without being too detailed.

I try to compose/shoot/present ‘full frame’ although I’m less concerned with making passing nods to Cartier-Bresson than maybe proving to myself that I could do it.  I’m not sure I’d aspire to claims of truth within this context, not that those conversations aren’t there, but just that it hasn’t been an angle I’ve actively sought, although others might of course read those notions into the choice. 

I like that shooting film slows me down. It forces me to think about pressing the shutter. So the process and act of photographing changes – in a good way. It also made me happier, if that’s the right word, with missing a picture. Maybe it gave me an excuse to miss it? But then it also brings more pleasure when you do get it right. 

And, yes, absolutely, I love the connection to history that these factors impose. The lineage, technically and aesthetically, to all the images I “grew up” with. The fact that it sits in the same frame of reference, the same technology and was made by the same devices. That is very consciously a satisfying factor. 

Side: Many of the spaces you photograph appear provisional, improvised, or resistant to formal use. How did you understand your role as a documentarian working within those conditions?

Adam: I like the constant change it imposes. Before the graffiti wall was removed in June 2022, you could really see those changes on a daily basis – or more, even – an hourly basis.  Just perpetual organic change. I guess graffiti has that scorched in its DNA – what is there today has no necessary right to still be there tomorrow.

The skate park naturally changes a bit more slowly, and more seasonally, but still rapidly compared to, say, city planning. And when it changes and the volunteer mass is organised, it changes satisfyingly quickly. 

I can see in myself that the unknown is an exciting prospect; each time I get to the edge of Suvilahti I wonder what will be there today? Who will be there? What interactions will occur? I suppose that fits generally with my process as a photographer and how I like to shoot. I would find it tedious to have everything planned.

Side: Side has a long-standing interest in working-class culture and the politics of access. Where do you see Suvilahti sitting in relation to questions of who urban space is for, and who gets written out?

Adam: I have no special contacts or inside information; what I know is readily available public information. 

When the published proposals for the area speak of spaces to ‘hang out’ one can’t help but think, well, there’s already a place to hang out, what you mean is that you want to monetise hanging out. And in doing so, change the spectrum of people that are able to hang out there. That seems like a very direct attack on access and a clear delineation on who they want ‘hanging out’. 

Relatively speaking, Finland is ‘lucky’ in social terms. The haves and have-not divide is not as stark as in many other places and there is a social security net that is absent in many other countries. That said, the divide is still there and, like anywhere, it’s never the have-nots making the decisions. Whether that be about civic spaces or mental heath support or child benefits. 

Spaces such as Suvilahti can give opportunity, community and voice, even if only by the simple fact of not having been financially excluded at the outset.

Side: In projects like this, the line between documentation and preservation can feel thin. Did that tension influence how you edited or structured the work?

Adam: There has certainly been a drive to preserve what is passing, even if I am only able to do that with still images.

I feel the work has a rhythm that follows certain events which, as mentioned, is also a little tied to the seasons. I was going to say I struggled with creating a structure but I think it was more a case of learning to lean into the lack of structure.  Perhaps enjoying that images don’t need to be chronologically or thematically organised? 

Certainly, I was conscious when making the book that it needed to reflect Suvilahti. I didn’t want it glossy and hardback. It needed to be suitably rough around the edges. And I found it interesting, looking back at key influential photography books, how recent the glamorous coffee table photography book really is. The English, The Destruction Business, Café Lehmitz, for example, are all soft back. 

I do think of the project as both protest and celebration. It’s interesting that things can be simultaneously both ends of the spectrum.  With Suvilahti, to be sad that something is passing but to be glad that you could be a part of it when it existed. 

Side: Gentrification is often justified through narratives of safety, renewal, or cultural value. How does your work push back against those framings, if at all?

Adam: I don’t know if my photographs explicitly fight this idea, but implicitly they do. Currently Suvilahti has an absolutely unique position and cultural value and that should be supported and fostered rather than threatened and destroyed. The photographs celebrate the creativity, community and vibrant use of the area.

I suppose the motives of any “renewal” will always need some analysis. Who are they really renewing it for? And who will be excluded from this renewed version? Are they taking somewhere – even if it is only an empty space – that is available to all, and reducing who it is available to or increasing who it is available to? And that might be in hard terms, (simply that some can’t afford to participate any more) or like a soft target, that you are subtly discouraged from participating and edged away. 

That might be sold to people as ‘renewal’ but clearly it’s not. I guess the proof of that would be to ask how many such spaces are renewed in the interests of those with less to spend? Very, very few. If that’s the way of the western world, then so be it, but let’s not pretend otherwise. 

I don’t know... what would be the class equivalent of greenwashing? 

Certainly, in Helsinki, no one with any knowledge would be convinced of an argument structured around safety.  And if they were I’d be tempted to think they were being disingenuous for other ends. Finland is astonishingly safe. Of course, things can and do happen here, and I don’t scan and memorise crime figures, but overall Helsinki is exceedingly safe compared to most capital cities.   

Side: Looking ahead, how do you imagine this work functioning as a record once the area has changed - as evidence, memory, or something else entirely?

Adam: I’ve always felt that interpretation necessarily overtakes intention, in nearly all contexts. What it is to me is not what it is to the next person. I might have an idea of why I made something, but there’s one of me and more than seven billion other possible interpretations. I appreciate that sounds a little trite, but... So yes it could be all of those things and different things to different people. 

On a personal level, I’m glad the book exists, flaws and all. I have a deep love for photo books so I’m glad to contribute in some form to that and to have something exist outside of me and my control. I’d hope some of the work is visually strong enough to draw interest and support and also to succeed on its own merits as photography too. 

Side: Thanks so much Adam!

If this conversation has you thinking about change as something lived and negotiated in everyday places, we would love you to share your own photographs with MySide: Moments of Change, our open call for documentary work rooted in lived experience.