War is a Disaster, is a long-term research project that examines how a collective memory of war is maintained and reproduced within Finnish society through media, rituals and upbringing. Collective memory refers to the internal historical perspective of communities, the key experiences within different generations, and historical trauma through which a community shapes its identity. The cornerstone of Finnish collective memory is largely formed by narratives, myths and trauma related to the Winter and Continuation Wars, which were fought between Finland and the Soviet Union from 1939-1944. 

Both wars ended in Finnish defeat, but are nationally celebrated today as decisive battles that secured the independence of the Finnish state from Russia. Historians refer to a neo-nationalist shift in the historical narrative of these wars, which is said to have emerged in the aftermath of glasnost and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union.  It is no stretch to call Finland, a country where over 70% of men in each age group receive formal military training through mandatory conscription and 84% of the public are willing to commit to armed struggle in the case of an invasion, a militarised society. Shared militaristic values, such as a sense of duty, unanimity and willingness to self-sacrifice, are upheld partly through a remembrance culture that attributes these values to the war generation.

By combining different forms of photography and archival research, the project traces a disparate selection of myths through re-enactment events, movie production documents, museums, archival images and personal documents. In combining these observations, collective historical consciousness becomes discernible in glimpses, such as in the way a group of airsoft players spontaneously re-enact death in combat, or in the sequence of photographs that a costume designer chooses to make on the set of his war film.