APRIL is a multi-channel moving image installation that reflects upon the spatiality of an area of a forest by projecting it onto a rectangular wall, a human structure.

The theme of APRIL is the spatiality of being and the constant change that is its fundamental quality. The source of the work is life in a forest where each singular being is an integrated element of the whole. The work was shot in a conservation area where the forest is allowed to exist without human intervention.

APRIL was shot in the course of two years, in the spring of 2022 and 2023, approximately between the end of March and end of May, and it covers the passage from winter to summer. In the beginning, the image at left still shows snow covering the ground, at right it is already summer. The work is a part of a longer project that explores the possibilities of ecological narration in moving image, and of moving away from the anthropocentric world views.

The spatiality of the forest is approached in the installation through eight passages, each of which enters the tract of forest. At the start, the initial images of all passages together constitute a unified landscape. The camera then begins to approach each framed area, breaking the landscape and opening up eight separate passages into the forest.

Inside the forest, the camera movement is dyssynchronic. It opens and closes spaces unexpectedly and alters the distances between trees during the journey. The motion is temporarily arrested at some trees, interrupting the otherwise continuous procession. Occasionally, the passages find different ways to connect with each other, and the changing perspectives alter the nature of spatial relations among the trees.

When all eight passages reach an area where aspens grow thick, the movement stops.

The base of APRIL is the location and its nature and the way it presents itself. The information on the basis of which the work is created is contributed by the tract of forest depicted in it. APRIL draws upon its light situations and spatial changes, its transitions and circumstances, its passage of time, its configuration of living beings and perceptions of movement.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila, APRIL, 2024
8 min loop – 8 channel (vertically) projected installation with 8.0 audio

Written and directed by Eija-Liisa Ahtila
Cinematography Antti Ruusuvuori
Editing Heikki Kotsalo
Image post-production Jari Hakala
Sound design Olli Pärnänen
Color grading Pentti Keskimäki
Data management Niko Skorpio
Production assistant Eetu Ahtila
Producer Ilppo Pohjola
Production supported by Kröller–Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands
© 2024 Crystal Eye, Helsinki