Interiors

Laurila’s latest series, Interiors, utilizes images of early 20th-century female patients, carefully chosen from an archive she has compiled throughout her artistic career. Over the years, these women have become intimately familiar to the artist, becoming uncannily intertwined with her sense of self and stirring emotions within her own body. By weaving her personal emotional experiences into these images, she constructs a multi-layered narrative where past and present converge. These unique photographic collages offer a reflection on the role of women in society, shifting from a clinical, detached gaze to a more empathetic, human perspective. The fractured layers and cuts in her work invite contemplation of the unseen, hidden aspects of human experience, questioning what lies beneath the surface.

Feminism and memory are central themes in Milja Laurila’s work, which delves into the intricate relationship between knowledge and the subconscious. By using borrowed images—particularly photographs from old medical books—as the foundation of her work, she frees them from their original context, allowing them to take on new meanings and speak on their own. Her alterations subvert and disrupt the socio-political structures underlying the original photographs.