2019 Retour à la nature

The series titled 'Alte Schönhauser Straße 26' combines three different mediums, which he labels the archetypes of image production: Realist oil painting, Polaroid photography, and Super 8 film. The main difference between these three mediums is in the time it takes to create them. The paintings can take tens of hours of work, while the films bring the viewer to a direct temporal presence within the project.

With 'Alte Schönhauser Straße 26' focus is on imaging and reconstituting the studio space that dually functions as his home and place of work. Within this space the artist finds confidence in his creative process and constructs his own presence as an artist, intersecting physical and mental conditions.

Working interactively is a way to get to know a new environment and to find one's place within its social networks. In order to explore his relation to space, himself and these networks Eemil Karila meticulously documents characters as they enter and exit 'his network', his place of production and habitation at Alte Schönhauser Straße 26 in Berlin.

The models in the paintings are the artist's close friends who partake voluntarily in their documentation. They visit the artists regularly until the completion of the painting.

In his work, Karila is interested in showing the unseen. Although the work in this exhibition appears in a very conventional medium, the ongoing project and its research deal with issues of time and space; how the contextualization of social events through art gives them a body and content

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Between you and me

The film essay is a poetic travel story in a form of a letter. In the letter artists talks about his process of creating a video work for an exhibition. Planning the exhibition with the museum faces difficulties in being concrete about the future and leads the artist to think about the philosophical questions about the creation of art in a relation with the society. In the clip the first 3:30 min Direction, Screenplay, Story and Cinematography by Eemil Karila Original music by: Twile, Additional sound design by Eemil Karila. Additional vocal by Elisabeth Szwarc. Voice over by Antje Engelmann, Subtitles and translation Anke Mittelberg and Sanna Isto-Rodenkirchen, Camera by Eemil Karila, Juhani Seppovaara and Ulu Braun, Editing by Eemil Karila and Jarkko R_s_nen 11:40min

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All created equal

All created equal shows us the everyday scene of the life of Orangutan in Berlin Zoo. Thick protection glass separates only 5% of our mutual genetic background questioning our colonial intentions of holding animals in captivity. The slow motion documentary reverses the focus from being observers to be the ones being observed.

Direction, Screenplay, Story and Cinematography by Eemil Karila

Original music by: Elisabeth Szwarc,

Camera by Eemil Karila and Juhani Seppovaara,

Editing by Eemil Karila and Jarkko Räsänen

TOM OF LAPLAND

TOM OF LAPLAND is a short film made by inspiration and influence of Tom of Finland, a homoerotic fetish artist. In the film another fetish figure Santa Claus with the pig are brought in to this patriarchal dance. Together all these elements blend and form a modern Chimera; Lat. Chimaera.
Direction, Screenplay, Story and Cinematography by Eemil Karila,Tom of Lapland : Simo Kellokumpu, Co-production by Niina Lehtonen-Braun Camera by Jarkko Räsänen, Editing by Eemil Karila 5:10min

Surface Values

Program gallery 2009

Surface Values is a social painting that presents cleaners’ work through painting media. The work is always site specific, which means that I always work with the person already regularly cleaning the institution or gallery, and on their conditions. The process of cleaning remains hidden from our daily routine, especially in the context of spaces that are perpetually on view. Work is usually done off-hours, before or after everyone else has gone home. It is work which almost always goes unnoticed, except for when it has not been done. Technically, the installation is created by mixing UV-ink into the cleaning chemicals. The UV-ink is transparent under exposure to normal light, but shines blue under UV-light. Using a timer, light in the gallery space is adjusted to change every 30 seconds. Alternately, blue abstract patterns glow visibly on the floor, then the clean space illuminated by fluorescent light. I typically gather information about each cleaner and his or her background, along with a photograph, to complete the actual story. Their work reminds us of the socioeconomic reality of custodial workers, many of whom are immigrants.

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The work was created in collaboration with Ludmila, Ukrainian cleaning woman who cleans at the Program Galley. She didn’t want her photograph to be archived in internet, since her husband does not know that she is working in Berlin as a cleaner, and belives she works as a nurse.

Culture Fusion Band

Culture Fusion Band is a project which consists of 11 immigrant musiians living in Finland. The aim of the project is to re-compose and re-arrange Finnish folk songs. During the process we study Finnish culture history and its musical heritage. Presenting these songs in new context we want to bring out the cultural and musical backgrounds based on musicians national and cultural identities. We also want to question the values and prejudices that many of the songs have, as their lyrics are sometimes very “politically incorrect”. The project could be solution for more authentic cultural integration for immigrants and for native Finnish. Our first performance was on Finnish cultural program at YLE1 channel.

See the documentary here

I am believer

Turkish coffee cup and saucer, coffee stains and audio clip of the fortune reading ap. 17min

Stage: 40 x 40cm, 2008

A Turkish fortuneteller read my future based on the coffee stains I left on my cup and saucer. Reading the future from the coffee satins is a strict tradition and contains many rules and canons. Like reading an abstract painting the content is created based on our subjective associations and our knowledge of art history. While watching the leftovers one could listen my future being red.

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HERITAGE CONSTRUCTIONS

2007

Text in the work: At this site we will reconstruct the Garden of Eden, so that man would get a second chance.
Digital print on satin, 400 cm x 600 cm

Twinky, the craziest bird in the world

2007

Twinky, the craziest bird in the world.
Based on Disneys´visual world, the work is an advertisement about movie, that doesnt exist. Composition of
the work reflects the 911 tragedy