Hotel Jugoslavija

'I believe that you can see more in a photograph than what it represents. Hear the sounds of its surroundings, smell its scents, and feel the specific rhythm of a city. If you look deep enough, you can see the whole world in a single photograph'. It is these terms that Sakari Viika defines his relationship with photography and photographs. He photographed in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia on three occasions in 2014 and 2015, drawing his plans for photographing and routes in his notebook. Some of these drawings also found a place in the book 'Hotel Jugoslavija'. One evening Sakari Viika took a picture through a bus window of the Hotel Jugoslavija, which had been closed for years. This picture was enough to give this book its name. In his preface to the book, Viika notes: 'A hotel is a place for a traveller, an outsider, to stay. The outsider and wanderer is the photographer of the book, stumbling over subjects, peeking into courtyards at night, pausing on a bench to observe the moods of passers-by. It is the outsider's prerogative to view places with untarnished eyes and no preconceptions. The result is a free-form portrait of a city. Not a likeness but recognisable.' The Finnish Book Art Committee awarded this book as one of the most beautiful books of the year 2018.