LUX Helsinki Lux Galleries:
Milla-Kariina Oja’s media artwork Terra Continuum
on Forum Box facade 6–11 Jan from 5 to 10 PM
Milla-Kariina Oja’s single-channel moving image work Terra Continuum considers the boundaries between inanimate and animate nature through different concepts of time. For example, what is the essence of a stone if we consider it in the light of a period of hundreds of millions of years, the geological time of the Earth? Is a stone inanimate after all?
The work was filmed on the limestone coast of Normandy, which was originally formed from the skeletons of plankton and protozoa on the ancient seabed. From the perspective of matter, humans are also part of that mineral world: without the minerals (calcium carbonate) in our bodies, we would not even be able to stand.
Terra Continuum is a version developed for Lux Helsinki based on the moving image installation Submerged, completed in Normandy in 2024. The work is projected onto the facade of Forum Box (Ruoholahdenranta 3 A, 00180 Helsinki) as part of the Lux Helsinki Festival program from Tuesday to Sunday, January 6–11, 2026, from 5–10 p.m. At the same time, Nestori Syrjälä’s exhibition is on display at Forum Box and Sini Pelkki’s work Present is on display at Mediabox. Forum Box also serves as Lux’s official coffee shop. Café Forum Box will serve visitors to the Light Art Festival from Tuesday to Sunday, January 6–11, 2026, from 5–10 p.m.
Milla-Kariina Oja is a visual artist living in Helsinki who works with photography and moving images. Her work has focused particularly on video installations that combine experimentalism and performativity. The themes of the works stem from fundamental questions of existence. At the core of their work is the human place in the world, both in the built environment and as part of nature and its cycles. Oja has studied photography and contemporary art at Manchester Metropolitan University, the Universities of Castilla-La Mancha and Barcelona. Oja’s works have been exhibited across Europe and China.