A visit to other worlds:
An essay regarding two exhibitions by Eija-Liisa Ahtila.
This write up regarding "two recent exhibitions by Eija-Liisa Ahtila" interested me as the work discussed is somewhat similar to my ongoing practice for independent study where I am using projection and space to show alternative and parallel visions of memory, value in time and life narrative and the psychology of memory etc.
"Ahtila is known for narrative, multiple screen video installations in which she presents the world from different viewpoints, implying parallel realities"
"scale, as well as architecture, changes meaning, focus and effect"
The article discusses how Mieke Bal visited exhibitions of Ahtilas "parallel worlds". Bal was "struck by the opportunities the Kasmia's extraordinary architecture offered Ahtila's work"
Bal then goes on to describe the building, "The building combines intimacy and grandeur, lucidity and mystery. Its spatially enigmatic rooms, shaped a half-elipses, decline the self-evident clarity of white-box galleries. While the KAsmia's size permits the grand sweep of a survey exhibition, it also provides opportunities for intimate viewing, something that Ahtila's installations require. The visitors movement from space to save, through the museums two long wings seemed to parallel the movement in the videos"
Bal makes an interesting observation that the works were installed not chronologically but imaginatively. This Is similar to the response gained from my visit to Tate Modern. The pieces shown in several of the rooms seemed more intuitively placed, as a way of creating balance than necessarily according to scale or a particular aesthetic code.
I found the essay overall very helpful in its descriptions of the "Kasmia" and also the way in which Bal considers the space in terms of public movement and also the architectural properties and how they effect both the interpretation of a piece but also its limitations within a space.
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