PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY HIPPOLYTE
Kalevankatu 18 B, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: Tue–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun 12–16, Closed: 22.-24.4.2011
1.-29.4.2011
Milla-Kariina Oja
HOME-PROJECT
Discussion Wednesday 13 April, 5 p.m. - Marko Karo, Milla-Kariina Oja & Hendrik Zeitler (discussion on English)
“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
- Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of Space, 1958)
Milla-Kariina Oja’s exhibition HOME-PROJECT reflects on the concept of home. In this recent work, the artist studies the vital space of human beings by photographing the universal and even a clichéd "image" of a house. She places a simple house-shaped model made out of wood and fabric in different locations to observe the relationship between the house and the chosen place.
The house appears in various outdoor settings – on mountains, in the middle of a desert, on the outskirts of a Chinese city, and in Finland by lakesides and in forests. In some of the images you only see the outline of the house, which may represent a memory or simple thought, drawn into the chosen landscape.
To Milla-Kariina Oja the memories of home are more powerful than others: “It feels like the events that took place there are glued to the walls. The home gives us a frame for our thoughts. Memories appear in our dreams and thoughts as images, and dwellings from the past are transformed into images that help us return to those moments. These spaces – the shelters – they melt into one, like puzzle pieces coming together. They are all connected to each other through the same feelings of safety and warmth that come from owning a space in this world.”
Milla-Kariina Oja is a Finnish artist who is currently based in Helsinki and Beijing. Living in China for several years has influenced Milla-Kariina Oja’s most recent work. The urban density of Beijing prompted her to reflect on her own space.
Oja left Finland at the age of 19 and studied art at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, where she graduated in 1999. She continued her studies in a PhD program until 2002 at the University of Barcelona. She lived and worked in Spain for 7 years until she moved to China in 2006.
Her works have been exhibited in galleries and art centers/museums in Europe and China. Her recent work, Home-Project, was shown in 2010 in her solo exhibition in Beijing at one of China’s most prominent platforms for contemporary photography and video art, The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. Her work was also shown as part of the Foreign artists in China platform at the Art Beijing Contemporary art fair 2010.
www.millakariinaoja.com
The exhibition was kindly supported by the Arts Council of Finland and the Arts Council of Helsinki Metropolitan Region.
Milla-Kariina Oja, From the home series: Border of a City, 2010- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For more information and press images, please contact:
Petronella Grönroos, exhibition co-ordinator / Photgraphic Gallery Hippolyte +358 9-612 33 44, firstname.lastname@hippolyte.fi
