Milla-Kariina Oja

MILLA-KARIINA OJA is a Finnish artist who is currently based in Helsinki. Her work moves on the border between photography and video and it often has performative qualities. Living in China for several years has influenced Oja´s recent work. The urban density of Beijing prompted her to reflect on her own space.

Her new exhibition Parallel Interiors observes the concepts of private space an borders. The works in the exhibition are based on interviews the artist has done during the past few years in China and in Finland. By investigating the characteristics of different individual spaces, her work attempts to ask what is similar between them, what connects the spaces together not architecturally or materially but on an emotional level.

“In our memories the spaces we have lived in get the same meaning. They have all been shelters for us, spaces of protection and comfort. In our memories they become one.”

Oja left Finland at the age of 19 and studied art at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. She continued her studies in a PhD program at the University of Barcelona, in Spain where she lived and worked for 7 years until she moved to China in 2006.

Her works have been exhibited in galleries and art centers/museums in Europe and China. Her previous work, Home-Project, was shown in 2010 as a part of her solo exhibition at The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing.