Marja Pirilä 18.1.-9.2. 2003

Curriculum Vitae (.pdf)

CAMERA OBSCURA interior/exterior

The original thought to create these pictures was born of a nocturnal insight: in a room transformed into a camera obscura I could simultaneously, on the same piece of film, capture a person, his/her room and the scenery streaming from the windows. What a comprehensive means to portray the living environment of a human being!

After years of experience of working with pinhole cameras, I began the project with a curious and persevering intent: experiments with several minute exposures, strenuous darkening processes, arrangements and cancellations of appointments, waiting for the right light, framing and focusing attempts in dark spaces. Being dazzled by light. Deep pleasure from the metamorphosis of a room. Wonder about the quivering, enchanting phenomenon.

More often than not, something unexpected happened in camera obscuras. Intentions transmogrified themselves into something new, the space and the situations lured one into unplanned solutions.

In a dark room, during long exposure times, I could only hope that the phenomenon which constantly quivered and took new forms under my very eyes would be captured on film as I had experienced it in the silence of the space.

The photographs began to take form not only as the charting of the living environment of a human being, but also of the landscapes of the mind: reflections of thoughts, dreams, fears and reveries.

Marja Pirilä
Excerpt from the photography book CAMERA OBSCURA inside/outside (Publisher Musta Taide, 2002)

Body, mind and camera obscura

What Marja Pirilä needs for her photographs is a black sheet of plastic, a convex lens and, naturally, a camera. Equipped with these she enters a room, covers the windows with the black plastic, and cuts a hole in it where she fixes her simple optical system.
A common space transforms into a camera obscura - a dark chamber upon whose walls the exterior scenery is reflected upside down. In this space, she photographs the habitant of the room. The occupant of the room thus is in a camera in two senses of the word: inside the camera obscura and as a image in the finder of the photographic equipment.

The outside world and the interior intermingle. An ambience is created, of which language and thinking can only grasp the sheer surface. The experience finds its place in the boby, sensations, dreamy nuances. Rooms become stages where one can interpret the problematic between one’s own space and the exterior world. The exterior, culture and other people, mould every human being. No one can depend solely on themselves, not even in a space of their own.

Excerpt from Janne Seppänen’s article “Body, mind and camera obscura in the photography book CAMERA OBSCURA inside/outside (Publisher Musta Taide, 2002)

 

	Camera obscura installation, 2002 glass, lenses, chromogenic colour print 150 x 275
Camera obscura installation, 2002 glass, lenses, chromogenic colour print 150 x 275	Camera obscura/Tiina's room 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 126 x 160 (edition 7A) edition of 7A + 7B
Camera obscura/Helmi 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 130 x 105 (edition 7A) edition of 7A + 7B	Camera obscura/Leevi 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 86 x 70 (edition 7A) edition of 7A + 7B
Camera obscura/Reilika and Reno 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 160 x 128 (edition 7A) edition of 7A + 7B	Camera obscura/Tiina and Mika 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 157 x 120 (edition 7A) edition of 7A + 7B
Camera obscura/Marja's room 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 177 x 82, diptych edition of 7	Camera obscura/Iris 2002, Tampere chromogenic colour print 190 x 77, diptych edition of 7
A and B series according to the size of the print; A large ones, B small ones. Larger press image files are viewed or downloaded by clicking theese images.