EIJA-LIISA AHTILA

EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
On foreign subjects, nature of miracles and possibilities of perception

For something to get started, one must merely begin and connect with a thing that isn't yet - as far as one knows, at least. And to write more to it.
 
How does one know what things are, unless they're already familiar? What does one know of them at that stage? How do such things exist? How to get next to them and engage in dialogue - on what and in whose language?
 
One instinctively approaches such things through the familiar, the known - at times with such precision and force that one can see from a single angle only, in one direction, all things in a clear order - one thing in front, another just behind it, and so on - in perspective.
 
Can something already familiar fulfil the criteria for a miracle? Can one be shaken with surprise by something one knows through and through? What does one see then?
 
Perhaps one encounters a question, which one cannot understand. Or an image of something that begins to puzzle the mind. They are displayed somewhere, where they can be discovered, and then one waits to see who comes to look at them. And how they look at them."
 
Excerpt from the work The Annunciation, 2011, Eija-Liisa Ahtila
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