18/4/2013
Eija-Liisa Ahtila
Kiasma, Helsinki
Parallel Worlds. Using images, sounds and stories, she constructs installations that embody alternating viewpoints. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the idea that living creatures inhabit separate, yet simultaneous worlds.
Curated by Leevi Haapala
Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s exhibition Parallel Worlds presents latest works by
the internationally acclaimed artist and invites us to consider the
boundaries of the experience of being human.
In her most recent works, Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959 in Hämeenlinna,
Finland) explores the relationship between humanity, animals and nature.
The title of the exhibition is a reference to the idea that living
creatures inhabit separate, yet simultaneous worlds. Our human
experience is only one of many possibilities. Ahtila has been inspired
in her work by the thinking of the Baltic German biologist and
philosopher Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944).
Ahtila often uses words and literature as starting points for her
works. The works also contain references to the narrative devices of
theatre, painting, film and television. The use of different modes of
representation in the same work is well suited for Ahtila’s themes – the
meeting of cultures, globalisation, and the shifting nature of human
consciousness and identity.
Ahtila explores the techniques of the moving image in works, which
often take the form of installations consisting of several video
projections. The viewer's place is in the centre of events. Eye contacts
and gestures travelling from one screen to the next are carefully
orchestrated and the viewing experience is always different depending on
the viewer’s position.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila's works has been exhibited in major museums across
the world, including Tate Modern in London, Neue Nationalgalerie in
Berlin, National Museum of Art in Osaka, and National Gallery of
Victoria in Melbourne.
The Parallel Worlds exhibition presents Ahtila’s works from the past
ten years. It is produced in collaboration with Moderna Museet in
Stockholm, where the exhibition was shown early last winter in 2012. And
the exhibition travelled last October to the Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art
Contemporain de Nîmes in France. Ahtila’s previous extensive solo
exhibition Fantasized Persons And Taped Conversations was shown in
Kiasma in 2002.
Further information
Curator Leevi Haapala, +358 (0)40 356 7434, leevi.haapala@kiasma.fi
Communications Manager Piia Laita, +358 (0)40 590 8805,
piia.laita@kiasma.fi
Photos for the press www.kiasma.fi/press
Press Conference 17 April at 11am in Kiasma
Kiasma
Museum of Contemporary Art
Mannerheiminaukio 2
00100 Helsinki, Finland
Mon closed, Tue 10–17, Wed–Fri 10–20.30, Sat 10–18, Sun 10–17
Adults 10 €
Concessions 8 € (students, pensioners, conscripts, non-military servicemen)
Group ticket 8 € per person (min. 10 people)
Under 18 year-olds free.
Free admission on the first Friday of the month 5 pm–8.30 pm.