Since the mid-1990's, Eija-Liisa Ahtila has been as much in evidence at international film festivals as on the art scene. She has always deliberately shown her films and videos in various different contexts. The same work, for example, may be shown in a 35 mm version in the cinema or video-projected to create large spatial installations in the gallery.
In terms of context, Ahtila always comes back to the theme of relationships-between generations, between the sexes, and with herself. Her stories, which often run in parallel using several split-screen images, appear to be authentic reportage, but in fact the dialogues derive from Ahtila's own experience and research, played out as fictitious narrative sequences by actors. The soundtrack is Finnish with English subtitles. In her to date best-known work "If 6 was 9", 1995, a group of young girls talk about their experiences. Accompanying the question "What should you do when every cool guy offers you his body?",are three images.
Ahtila lets her subjects relate both their positive and negative experiences in a natural way that is neither sensationalist nor coy.
Images of Ahtila's work:
SOURCES:
'Art at the turn of the Millennium' (Book)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSUQcjNvYh8
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