Transcendent Country of the Mind is a project exploring my encounters with alternative dimensions of reality and perceptions of otherworldly signs around us. It tells the story of a world that lives at the back of our minds. In my early twenties I experimented with LSD regularly and excessively and eventually experienced an extended psychotic episode, which had serious consequences on my life, but also profoundly changed the way I perceive the world and reality itself. These photographs represent this perspective and offer others similar glimpses to what I found behind the curtain of reality.
Sari Soininen (b.1991, Raisio) is a Finnish photographer based in Bristol, United Kingdom. Her colourful otherworldly photography draws from philosophical thoughts and personal mystical experiences. Her interest is in providing the viewer with alternative ways of seeing the world and reality around them. Sari holds a MA in photography from UWE Bristol (2021), BA in photography from Lahti Institute of Design (2014), and she carried out exchange studies in Edinburgh College of Art (2013).
