© Eija-Liisa Ahtila, still from Consolation Service

It is probably fair to say that the Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila got her breakthrough with the film "If 6 was 9". A film that Index was proud to premier some four years ago. "If 6 was 9" could be described as a film about young girls sexuality. In one of the scenes in the film, we were confronted with a teenage girl who shockingly unshy and provocative said: "Here I sit with my legs apart - like a small girl who has not learned anything about sex, who has no idea about the fact that a woman must hide her private parts and lust. In fact I am 38 years old". Words of a grown up put into the mouth of a young girl.

Voices that are transfered, multiple characters, identities under construction or dissolving are themes that keep coming back in the works of Ahtila, who constantly seems to investigate the borders of the Self. "Human Dramas" is what Ahtila calls her films, and they are all based on real events, investigations, conversations and dreams. Balancing between thruth and fantasy they convey a feeling of biography and fiction at the same time.

In the film "Consolation Service" (1999), the teenage world is nothing more than a memory. Now, the family is a fact - and the consolation service. Almost unbearably close we meet a couple and their little child. A common history is on its way to end, two new ones to begin. As before, it is possible to mistake the film for a story about reality. But this time the filmic illusion is partly broken to pieces and unveiled. All of a sudden a person in the film can make comments about the film itself, and then a few seconds later enters the script again, so to say. On a presentational level, the film consists of two projections that sometimes form a unit. "Consolation Service" takes place during early Spring when the Winter is about to end. The ice is as thin and fragile as the couple´s relation.

Karina Ericsson Wärn

During the last few years Eija-Liisa Ahtila has taken part in a long series of major international exhibitions. In 1999 she represented Finland in the nordic pavillion at the Venice Biennale with "Consolation Service". At this very moment she is having a large retrospectiv at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. She also takes part in the group show "Organizing Freedom" at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Eija-Liisa Ahtila and her gallerist Tanja Grunert from New York will be in Stockholm in connection with the opening at Index.

"Consolation Service" is 23 minutes long, it is screened from the beginning every 30 minutes.

Index program is decided by: Karina Ericsson Wärn Director Index & freelancing critic, Helena Holmberg curator Index, Mats Stjernstedt freelancing curator and critic, Andreas Gedin artist and editor of M.