Marja Pirilä: Milavida 3, 2012

Completion year: 2012

Technique: pigment print

Size: 64x80 cm

Edition: 7+7+ 2AP

Keywords: Camera obscura, Marja Pirilä

Milavida
I began photographing in the Milavida mansion located in Tampere, FI in 2011. The building, currently known as Milavida Museum, had been standing empty for years.
As I worked long days in the deserted silence of the house, its spaces began to exude its varied and wild history. In the rooms which I transformed into camera obscura it felt as if present and past were engaged in constant dialogue.
In the dim, spacious rooms my eyes slowly became accustomed to seeing the wraithlike reflections born in by the light which came into being as the outside and inside spaces dovetailed into each other.
I repeatedly became aware of a sense of wonder: the blind photographer regained her sight! Eventually I had before my eyes that which I was seeking – I opened the shutter and exposed the photograph. The pictures recorded transitional spaces, doors, thresholds and doorways which reflected my feeling in the face of a change in life and the unknown and my love of light and its capriciousness.

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