MARJA PIRILÄSpeaking Light 9.9.2006 – 1.10.2006

My pictures are not just pictures of something
but rather an existential act
whereby I define myself and the interior space of the world.*

Light, space and transformation continue to amaze me. The Speaking Light exhibition features three new sets of works.

In the Speaking House series, I have transformed spaces in a large abandoned house into dark rooms, camera obscuras. The time-worn rooms of the mental asylum, already amazing in their native state, have taken in reflections of the outside world. A second, intangible state of light has been etched onto the images during the long exposure times of up to an hour.

Work in the camera obscura method has again been a slow and meditative process. Day turns into night and summer into winter, the shoots go on and every time, the light in the house has changed and spoken in a different voice. For me, this series of pictures has also been a long journey into facing and accepting disintegration, surrender and death.

The works in the Speaking House series were printed on thick, fibrous paper in pigment colours that give a velvety surface, intense hue and long life.

I am is a series of black-and-white double portraits of children on the brink of puberty. Through the works I wish to share the experience of us all being one, deep down in our silent depths, the feeling of me being ­- you! Eyes and Mouth Camera Obscura consists of three camera obscuras in wood executed together with Petri Nuutinen. The shapes of the eyes and mouth form a kind of face spreading into the space, reflecting the surroundings and events therein.

Camera obscura (Latin for "dark room") is a phenomenon where light passing into a dark space through a hole or lens forms an upside-down image of the view outside. Scientists, artists and philosophers have used the phenomenon for centuries in their work.

Marja Pirilä

* Adapted from Juhani Pallasmaa, "Maailman sisätila" [Interior space of the world] / Juhana Blomstedt: "Unelma valosta" [Dream of light], WAM 1998 p. 4