PRESS RELEASE
Press photos are available!Photographic gallery Hippolyte
Kalevankatu 18 B, FI-00100 Helsinki
+3589-612 33 44, photo@artists.fi
www.hippolyte.fi
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 1217, Sat-Sun 1216
MILJA LAURILA
To remember
9 March - 1 April 2007
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte presents an exhibition by Milja Laurila. Entitled To Remember, the exhibition consists of photographs and a textual installation. Together the works explore memories and remembering. The photos in the exhibition are multiple exposures, with the present merging, literally and physically, with the past. The textual work 355 Memories records individual and random memories.
"When my father died when I was 11, I wiped out my life up to that point from my mind. I did not want to remember. Still old photos, diaries and other objects remind me of the things I have forgotten and should remember. Forgotten things do no not disappear in forgetting. They have a strong presence, but one that is difficult to seize.
My photos employ double exposure to merge the past and the present. I feel it is important that the elements of the picture fuse physically into one another on the surface of the film. The unpredictability of the method, the haziness of the pictures and the faded colours all reflect accurately my experience of forgetting. My photos are not recollections, but rather images of forgetting memories I am unable to reach.
The work 355 Memories is an attempt to reach the memories behind the photos. My idea was to write down everything I remember of my childhood. It proved to be a difficult task. Memories kept cropping up here and there, and many quite recent things appeared among the childhood memories. One of the themes in the work is actually the question whether memories can be controlled, and whether they have an order. What is the relationship between images and words? Can a memory be wrong? Can a lived life be articulated anew?"
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Milja Laurila (b. 1982) is a photographic artist based in Helsinki. She is currently studying at the University of Art and Design Helsinki for an MA degree. To Remember is her first solo show in Helsinki. Laurila's work has previously appeared in several group exhibitions and in a solo show in Tallinn in 2006.
Milja Laurila, To remember (beach), 2005
