Marja Pirilä 9.1. - 31.1.2010
I am
I am curious about the everyday life that is surrounding us, its almost invisible layers and the stream of time. For the reason that everyday changes, even the growing-up of a child, is difficult to detect I began to document the change by photographing again and again the light of human.
From this eight-year project evolved a photo installation with many parts, I am II. In the work the layers of time slide among each other and the changes between the age of eight and sixteen of each photographed child become visible. Side to side to the photos are words written by the youngsters continuing the sentence “I am…”. I am II is a documental sister-work to the work I am, which was born from the same photo project in 2006. With this work I wanted to share the experience of how we are all elementarily one, the feeling that I am you.
I have worked on the same confusing experience with the other works of this exhibition as well. Works in which the layers of identities meet. With the help of the vast photo material that had come of this project I have made an expedition to the essence of man by using a composition method developed by Francis Galton (1822-1911). With this method by exposing single portraits on top of each other one can create a new figure, a simplified essence of the people portrayed. In such way, there is a breath of light of each one of them in the final picture.
In our time, that promotes individuality, it is strange to look in the eyes of a figure that is everyone and no-one at the same time. Before these pictures I feel like I am looking into something that is all of us as well as into a mirror. A human being shines through itself and also through each other.
Marja Pirilä
Photographer Marja Pirilä (b.1957) graduated in 1986 as a photographer from the University of Industrial Arts and as MA from the University of Helsinki. She has had a versatile career among photography working as a teacher as well as an artist. Pirilä has exhibited widely in Finland and abroad. She was awarded with The State Prize for Photographic Art in 2000. Marja Pirilä has published photograph books CAMERA OBSCURA interior/exterior (2002), “Aukeavat sormenpäiden silmät” (1993) and an exhibition catalogue Speaking Light (2006).
I am / every girl has wings, 2009 |
I am / every boy has wings, 2009 |
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I am/sixteen-year-old, 2009 |
I am /eight-year-old, 2009 |
I am / identities, 2009 |
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I am / three identities, 2009 |
I am II, 2009 |
I am II, 2009 |
I am II, 2009 |
