27.3.–25.4.2026. Rebers uses photographs to examine human life as a continuum of generations. He uses the metaphor of theatre to describe how our perspective changes over the course of our lives: in childhood we view the world from a distance, through imagination and stories, while over time we move closer to the stage. As life progresses, responsibilities, memories and losses change the way we see both the past and our own place in the chain of generations. The exhibition particularly reflects on the relationship between parent and child and how our identity is built from the stories and experiences we have inherited.
"A person lives their life, directing and planning, yet sometimes forgets that life is finite, something never fully within one’s control. Life goes on, even when someone, or oneself, is no longer here. It is like sitting in a theatre, watching a play. Over time, one is moved forward, row by row, until reaching the very front. There one understands that the play, life, is not what happens on the stage, but the place where one happens to sit at that moment.
Childhood is a place where the sun seems always to shine and where visible and invisible figures offer protection from harm. Life appears only in flashes. From the fourth row a child sees a fragmented performance: elves, monsters, and figures born of imagination and the elders’ stories, tales that sometimes take shape, but only as thin outlines.
With time we move forward through the hall. When the oldest leave us, we arrive at the third row, where the play becomes clearer yet still feels distant. On the second row only the parents remain, while one’s own responsibilities and the bubble of everyday life obscure the view. It was there, in my fifties, that my gaze began to turn backwards: Where do I come from? What do I carry with me? What still lies ahead?
When the illusion of control breaks, loss becomes central. My mother died after a long struggle, my father years later. My story becomes more and more theirs, the story that shaped me and that I carry in my own body. For a while I still sat in the second row. Then no longer.
The illusion of childhood served me well, then everything was possible. Now, at sixty, I sit at the very edge of the stage, in the front row, where the light is brighter and life is shorter. Now I am the figure seen only in a brief glimpse from the fourth row, part of the quiet movement between generations that this exhibition reflects upon."
Lars Rebers is an art photographer, art educator, and a student for life. He has graduated as a Master of Arts in 1990 and as an art educator in 1996 from The University of Arts. Rebers has had several exhibitions in Finland. He is a member of The Association of Photographic Artists.
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