invited guest: Milja Laurila

I have few memories from my childhood. After my father died when I was eleven, I tried to forget my life up to that point. I didn’t want to remember. In our family pictures, I saw unfamiliar places and people I couldn’t recognize.

My father had three cameras. He made markings on his negative pages with a green pen. From one of the pages the negatives are missing – only his markings are left. The missing pictures resemble my memories: knowing that they are gone makes their presence even stronger.













In the series To remember, I use the technique of multiple exposures to merge the past images with the present. For me, it is important that the elements of the picture are not separable, that they constitute a whole also physically. The unpredictability of the method, the haziness of the pictures and the faded colours reflect my experience of forgetting and remembering. My photographs are not recollections but rather images of forgetting, memories I am unable to reach. - Milja Laurila









Milja Laurila, born 1982 in Helsinki is student of University of Art and Design Helsinki, MA program in photography. "To remember" was exhibited last year at the Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in Berlin, Hamburg and Stockholm among other places. I am glad to be able to show some of her great photographs here. My love story with The Helsinki School is a treasure. See more of Milja Laurila´s work at the site of the Helsinki School
invited by ulf fågelhammar