SCENE is an art education project that encourages participants to respond to Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s artistic approach to narrative structures and cinematic language, by creating a fictional scene using, text, photography or drawing.

This project is inspired by the solo exhibition, INT. STAGE-DAY, comprised of recent works by Eija-Liisa Ahtila and presented at DHC/ART from January 29th to May 9th, 2010.

The Project

Participants are invited to take part in an inter-active group visit to the exhibition INT. STAGE_DAY with DHC/ART educators. Following the visit, participants will take part in an exchange about Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s works and concepts of visual narration, cinema and the psychological states of the protagonists in her work. Examples of film, theater scripts, storyboards, and film stills will be presented as points of departure for the creation of art within the framework of the SCENE project.
Participants will receive a randomly selected sheet of paper on which a scene direction will be printed. (Example: INT NIGHT – Abandoned metro station). The participant’s challenge is to create a scene using text, photography, collage or drawing motivated by their scene direction. They are encouraged to use characters, images and words based on personal experience or impression of a real event.

Participating in SCENE

This project can be created within the time of the visit to DHC/ART or can be included as a credited project in a variety of course curricula. Professors and students who complete the project within their course work will have two weeks to complete their artworks.

Professors or teachers who would like to include the project in their course work or lesson plans are asked to contact DHC/ART Education for advice on how to proceed with the project.

Technical Specifications

All participants will be given one sheet of rigid paper indicating their scene direction. They are free to use text, photography, collage or drawings to express their scene concept. All projects must be 2 dimensional only and fill only the page provided. Participants can choose to print directly on the sheet or cut and paste their work onto it.

Projects completed outside of the gallery visit will be picked-up and returned to DHC/ART by messenger courtesy of DHC/ART.

All participants’ projects will be exhibited on the DHC/ART website. Works will be scanned and posted on the site by DHC /ART Education staff.

The Exhibition

Finnish filmmaker, photographer and video artist, Eija-Liisa Ahtila is known mainly for her complex multi-screen narratives which address the fragile inner life of her protagonists and the tenuous line separating fantasy from reality. Considered a master of the multimedia form, her work is conceptually organized around the construction of image, language, narrative and space while exploring issues of subjectivity, madness and violence.

Spanning 15 years of art making, the exhibition is the first large-scale survey of her work in North America and the largest gathering of her work to date outside Europe.

To make a reservation, please consult the LEARNING section of our website.