Jukka Male (born in 1954 in Helsinki) is a Finnish photographer, documentarian, and creator of music and films.
He has been involved in photography since the 1970s. He gained his first experiences thanks to his grandfather, with whom he had a very close friendship. While studying photography, he also worked at the Goethe-Institut. He was present at and documented many important and difficult events in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as at the beginning of the 21st century – political transformations, social life, everyday life and festive occasions. He created long-term projects, returning to places and people. Among his most important projects are “How Brothers Became Others – The Balkan Tragedy”, showing the victims of the war in former Yugoslavia; Chino Street in Barcelona, Średnia Wieś in Poland, and a photo reportage from the disappearing small fishing village of Oqaatsut in Greenland. Each photograph carries a story, and the seconds from the lives of various social groups captured on film reveal the vast range of experiences gathered by the artist over the years. From 1998 to 2018, the artist ran the independent gallery and photography museum Jukka Male Museo, located in the old Helsinki Cable Factory – Kaapelitehdas. He first came to Poland at the end of the 1970s. His planned journey was preceded by an intensive Polish language course. The artist currently lives and works in Poland, in Katowice.
