'I plan and visually construct buildings, which will protect nature from threats of pollution and what is more important, from actions of man. . . . When putting nature into a museum, you have to take under consideration the aspect of the audience/consumer. Nature becomes a joyride for tourists or a beautiful landscape turns into a meditative theatre show.'

Throughout his career, Ilkka Halso has focused his photography around protecting, restoring, and understanding the anatomy of nature. His photographic series have visually explored how we as a culture must develop new approaches in perceiving as well as re-evaluating the natural resources we so commonly take for granted. His earlier works studied the different aspects of humanity’s relationship to nature by treating it as if it were a rare and endangered place. Halso therefore combines his landscape photography either with computer generated 3D-models or real existing construction sides in order to draw attention to the importance of environmental protection. 
 
Works such as Rollercoaster (2004) or Museum I (2003) not only emphasize the need to protect lakes, rivers, and forests from man-made pollution, but also predict, what soon could become our future: By staging his created ecosystems as joyful touristic attractions or placing them into museum-like settings, the audience (or the consumer) is being given a unique and unusual experience. Here, nature is presented either as an object of pure entertainment or as a fragile and fading ecosystem that has been exploited to a point, where the sensitive nature has no longer a chance to regenerate itself.

 
Ilkka Halso (*1965 in Orimattila, Finland) is one of the most-known conceptual artists focusing on landscape, environmental, and manipulated photography with an interest in Eco Art.[n2]  He graduated from Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture in 1992. His most notable exhibitions include Bumpy ride, FotoGraFia Festival internazionale di roma, MaCro Future, (Rome, 2010), Arctic Hysteria, p.s.1 Contemporary art Center / MoMa (New York, 2008), and the 6th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai art Museum (2006).