The Jailer’s Daughter

Mari Mäntynen:
The Jailer’s Daughter

Forthcoming in late 2026

Mari Mäntynen grew up on the grounds of Kerava Prison, a short drive from Helsinki, in a house that came with her father’s job as a guard. As an adult, she kept dreaming of the place. The Jailer’s Daughter follows her return: meetings with former and current prisoners, staff, her father and families who once lived in the area.

Mäntynen now looks at the place with grown-up eyes, but tries to keep a child’s curious and playful way of seeing: three people climb into the apple tree; a former prisoner and a former guard play a game of tervapata; prisoners stack themselves into a human pyramid.

Behind bars, everyone is fixed in a role. In Mäntynen’s photographs, the distance between people shrinks for a moment, and something offbeat and askew slips in.

Alongside Mäntynen’s photographs, Ida Azmi Helenius, who also grew up on the same grounds, has gathered short stories from former prisoners, staff and people who spent their childhood there.

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MARI MÄNTYNEN (b. 1997) is a Finnish visual artist working with photography, video and performance. In her practice, she continually places herself at the edges of social norms. Collaboration, play and absurdity become methods for approaching difficult or socially charged subjects. Rather than observing the situations from the outside, she constructs them, enters into them and shares the experience with the people involved.

Year: 2026
Pages: 96
Edition: 300
Language: English & Finnish

ISBN 978-952-7663-02-8
UTU 030