Gallery Aski: Lilli Haapala – Passage

“All worldly beings are immersed into something that is immersed into them”. Emmanuele Coccia describes the concept of being immersed in his work The Life of Plants–The Metaphysics of Mixture.

Passage installation consists of a video work and a silicone sculpture in a pool of water. The video is based on an underwater image world that I have filmed in different bodies of water

in Greece, Finland and in my studio. The work deals with the subconscious experiences of the human body and the relationship with nature. The work was born from the process of looking at dreams and the hidden aspects of reality and from the lucid dream exercises that the name Passage refers to. It is a subconscious journey towards a deeper understanding of the different layers of the mind, nature and reality. In the work, water appears as a meaningful element and reflects areas between different surfaces and depths: What is actually visible or invisible, material or immaterial?

Thanks to the Finnish Cultural Foundation Varsinais Suomi, the Finnish institute of Athens and the Turku Art Association.

Lilli Haapala (b.1984) is a visual artist based in Turku, who works multidisciplinary, including video, sculpture and installation. Haapala graduated from the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in 2017, and as a visual artist (Amk) from the Turku Arts Academy in 2015. Haapala has been awarded the Art Foundation Merita’s Artist award in 2018, and her works include e.g. in the State Art Collections. In her works, she examines human nature relations, through dreams, natural philosophy and speculative fiction, often working with water and plants.