Jesper Dolgov is a visual artist working in Turku, whose practice moves across the terrains of analogue photography, sculpture, drawing, and installation. At the center of his practice is the materiality of analogue photography and its relation to light, matter, and bodily presence. For Dolgov, photography is not primarily a medium of representation, but an arena where different materialities and agencies come together – an event in which the world and its materials articulate themselves through light.

Dolgov looks at photography through the lens of posthumanism and new materialism, in which authorship is understood not as individual but as a distributed and scattering process. He understands the coming-into-being of works as a continuous movement between materials, in which the relations between light, materials, and modes of making shape one another. Within this way of thinking, photographing can no longer be seen as taking images, but must instead be seen as receiving light.

Dolgov's works seek to unsettle photography's traditional spatial and temporal rigidity, emphasizing instead the endless movement and renewal of the materials and agents that take part in the photographic event. He is currently continuing to deepen his practice toward a genuinely shared, distributed, and scattering way of making and being-with. Dolgov has shown his work in domestic and international exhibitions since 2021.

Alongside his artistic work, Dolgov works as a freelance photographer and as a producer in performing arts productions. Selected work samples can be found here.

For inquiries about works, commissions, and collaboration proposals, you can reach me by email at jesper.dolgov (a) gmail.com.


Jesper Dolgov
b.1987, Espoo


EDUCATION

2025–        Master of Arts, Photography
                  Aalto University, Finland
2023          Bachelor of Culture & Arts, Visual Artist (Photography)   
                  Turku UAS Arts Academy, Finland
2011          Bachelor of Culture & Arts, Cultural Manager   
                  Seinäjoki UAS, Finland


SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025         Heavy Light, Hippolyte Korjaamo, Helsinki, Finland
2022         Aether, with Jussi Ronkainen, B-galleria, Turku, Finland


GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2026         Affinities & Materialities, Galleria Toinen Silmä, Helsinki, Finland
2025         Citizens Art Collective, Amiraalistonkatu Tram Barracks
                  Turku, Finland
2023         Turku Artists’ Associations 99th Annual Exhibition
                 Kunsthalle Turku, Finland
2022         NYTT 2022, Kunsthalle Turku, Finland
2021         This Must Be My Dream, Estonian Academy of Arts,
                  Tallinn, Estonia
2021         Huoneiden kirja, Turku, Finland
2021         Hiostamo 1/2021, Köysiratagalleria, Turku, Finland


GRANTS

2025         Arts Promotion Centre, Varsinais-Suomi Regional Grant
2022         Kone Foundation, 1-year Personal Working Grant
2022         COVID-19 Grant, Arts Promotion Centre Finland
2021         COVID-19 Grant, Arts Promotion Centre Finland
2020         COVID-19 Grant, Arts Promotion Centre Finland


AWARDS

2022         Scholarship awarded to a graduating student of
                 outstanding merit, Turun Saskiat ry.
2021         State Prize for Performing Arts
                 For the work Huoneiden kirja (The Book of Rooms),
                 as designer of room 55


WORKS IN COLLECTIONS

                  Private collections
                  Finnish State Art Commission
                  Finnish Art Society
                  Aalto University Student Union's art collection


MEMBERSHIPS

                   Association of Photographic Artists
                   Arte ry.
                   Photographic Centre Peri


POSITIONS OF TRUST

2021 –         Photographic Centre Peri, Vice Chair of the Board