Marja Pirilä: The light in the Darkness

The earliest records of the effects of Camera Obscura were made in China BC. Since then, this phenomenon has intrigued scientists and researchers. In camera obscura, the light goes through a small hole into a dark space and forms a pictorial element of the outside world. Artists learned how to master the optical illusion created by the camera obscura in the 17th century and strengthened the effect by putting a lens on the hole. This was the start for a tool we know more commonly as a camera.

Photographic artist Marja Pirilä (b. 1957) has researched and captured the effects of camera obscura in her images for several decades. She transforms the space she works in as a camera. This ancient technique creates a new kind of world on the surfaces of the space. While being in the Camera Obscura, Pirilä captures the view with an ordinary camera. As the layers of interior and exterior combine, our interaction with our surroundings becomes more tangible. As this happens, also a third dreamlike reality and a world that is upside down takes shape onto the surface and brings a different light to our ordinary things.

"You must repeatedly go inside the darkness of Camera Obscura to find the light. How slowly my eyes adjust in seeing the dreamlike pictorial elements that the light carries with. And every time I am astonished by the same realization, a blind photographer redeems her sight! In the darkness as the interior and exterior combines, a new third space is created as a state of mind. As I open my camera, the light coming through the shutter makes it an image."
-Marja Pirilä

The exhibition “Light in the Darkness” by Marja Pirilä, represented at the VB Photography Centre displays her works taken during three decades, and takes the viewer inside the camera. The experience is intensified by three dimensional camera obscura pieces, which she has produced together with Petri Nuutinen. The soundscape is created by Tapani Rinne.