MERI EKOLA

Theater Bremen (premiere: 19.02.2022), Wuppertal Opera (premiere: 03.12.2022)
Lighting design for experimental music theatre.

Concept, text: Oblivia
Artistic direction: Annika Tudeer
Composition, sound design, electronics: Yiran Zhao
Costumes: Tua Helve
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Performance Dramaturg: Alice Ferl, Anna-Maija Terävä

Cast Wuppertal
Rebecca Murphy (Soprano), Julia Reznik (Mezzosopran), Yisae Choi (Bassbariton),
Alice Ferl, Timo Fredriksson, Matthieu Svetchine, Annika Tudeer (Performance),
Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal
Musical direction: Tobias Deutschmann
Photos: Björn Hickmann

Produced as NOperas! project, by the NRW KULTURsekretariat and the Kunststiftung NRW.

Premiere at Les Brigittines, Brussels, 2021. On tour: Propulse, BE, Artdanthé, FR; Le Rideau, CA.
Lighting design for dance.

Choreography and performance: Louise Baduel
Music: Marc Melià 
Text: Sébastien Fayard 
Scenography: Donatien de le Court
Light: Meri Ekola
Dramaturgy: Pascale Gigon

Light installation, Arvika Ljus!, Arvika, SE, 2021

We humans are trapped in an endless loop of continuous need for growth. We strive to expand in every way without awareness of the destruction we create. In the work “Infinity”, two curved illuminated shapes form two arcs that are duplicated by the water reflection and a full image is created, a symmetrical figure of two rounds tight together. This sign ∞  is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. When the water is still, the shapes on the water surface are repeated as a perfect mirror picture, but as soon as a small wind blows and waves come, the image is distorted. Like this image, our existence is only the result of appropriate circumstances. Something so fragile is impossible to preserve forever. The harmony we are constantly longing for remains a utopia.

Concept: Meri Ekola
The work was made in collaboration with Lin de Mol and Erik Lövblad (AluHaven). Sponsored by Arvika Fastighets AB.
Photo: Lin de Mol

Performance concert, a commission of A I S T I T / coming to our senses contemporary art programme, Helsinki/Benelux, 2021

Working group: Tari Doris, Meri Ekola, E. L. Karhu, Anna-Mari Karvonen, Kid Kokko, H Ouramo
Photo: Shia Conlon

Lilla Teatern, Helsinki, Finland, 2020
Lighting design for theatre.

“Livet Ditt As is the third performance by Blaue Frau based on the texts and comics by Nina Hemmingsson. A girl, a pudel, a pig, and a tree, four anxious and wind-driven characters meet in a public place, in a residential area, at a party, and in the woods. In all the places they find it hard to co-exist and misunderstand each other constantly.” https://www.blauefrau.com

Writers: Nina Hemmingsson, Gunnar Lundkvist
Dramaturgy: Anders Larsson, Sonja Ahlfors, Joanna Wingren
Director: Anders Larsson
On stage: Boel Marie Larsson, Herman Nyby, Joanna Wingren, Sonja Ahlfors
Choreography: Sonya Lindfors
Scenography & costume design: Linn Henriksson Strååt, Ebba Forstenberg
Scenography assistant: Johan Isaksson
Light design: Meri Ekola
Light assistant: Alina Pajula
Sound design: Alina Ostrogradskaya
Make Up design: Saara Räisänen
Seamstress: Sanna Pietilä
Still images from video documentation : Carolin Koss & Kimmo Kallonen

ECLAT Festival at Theater Rampe, Stuttgart, Germany, 2020
Lighting design for theatre.

Performers: Alice Ferl, Timo Fredriksson, Annika Tudeer
Devising: Alice Ferl, Timo Fredriksson, Anna–Maija Terävä, Annika Tudeer
Performance dramaturgy: Anna-Maija Terävä
Light design: Meri Ekola
Costume design: Tua Helve
Composition, sound design, and live electronic: Yiran Zhao
Photo: Daniela Wolf

Installation in LUX Helsinki, Finland, 2020

Installation at K41 project space, Brussels, 2019

Translucent photographic paper, led-lights, wood
135cm x 90cm

Performance on Baltic Circle Festival, Helsinki, 2019

Working group: Meri Ekola, E. L. Karhu, Emilia Kokko, Markus Lindén, Elina Minn, Hannah Ouramo
Photo: Tani Simberg

Installation at Reflektor Korso, Vantaa, 2019

Volatiles investigates the natural processes of the forests.

The installation portrays one of the essential mediators of these processes, the volatile organic compounds, that are carried with the air. The volatiles are chemicals emitted by all plants mainly from leaf surfaces. They act as signals and as such facilitate relationships between plants and the organisms with which they interact, the insects, the fungi, the herbivores and even us humans. 

Volatiles normally stay invisible to the human eye because of their molecular size, however in the installation they will manifest through the medium of light.

Zodiak Center For New Dance, Helsinki, Finland, 2019
Lighting design for dance.

“Fragile Eyes, based on The Laugh of the Medusa (1975) by the French philosopher and author Hélène Cixous, combines dance, text and music.

Fragile Eyes takes the themes explored by Cixous onto the level of performative action and dreamlike logic. The performance in an immersive fabric where the audioscape and situations, new texts and songs inspired by Cixous’ thinking evoke hallucinatory states of being. Its dreamlike, absurd atmosphere is created when everyday occurrences merge with fantasy. The performance navigates the borderlines between various performing arts yet refuses to lock itself into any single genre.” (http://liisapentti.com/hauraat-silmat-fragile-eyes/)

Concept and direction: Liisa Pentti
Dancers: Sonja Ahlfors, Bo Madvig, Marlon Moilanen, Pinja Poropudas, Klara Wenner Tångring, Joanna Wingren
Sound design: Jouni Tauriainen
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Costume design: Ingvill Fossheim
Set design: Fabian Nyberg
Outside Eye: Rea-Liina Brunou
Dramaturge: Titta Halinen
Producer: Inari Pesonen
Photo: Uupi Tirronen

Sotku, Kuopio, Finland, 2018
Lighting design for performance.

Performers: Inka-Leea Haatainen, Ville Nylén
Choreography: Sonja Jokiniemi
Texts: Antti Nylén
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Sound design: Patrick de Rham
Costumes: Janina Silvennoinen
Photo: Anu Rantonen

Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Finland, 2018
Lighting design for dance.

The Space is the second part of a two-part performance series Body is a (clear) Place in the Space happening in the years 2017-18. The first part is a duet called The Body where Liisa Pentti performs with the Danish performance artist Bo Madvig. The duet premiered in Helsinki in September 2017.

The Space is a work for six dancers, two live musicians and several video projections. It is a work about spatial and bodily metamorphoses that create a multi-sensory dialogue between the space, the performers and the viewer. The performers use the whole of the auditorium, blurring the boundary between the audience and the stage and creating new ways of looking at the space.

Concept and direction: Liisa Pentti
Dancers: Rea-Liina Brunou, Johanna Ikola, Carita Lähteenmäki, Maija Reeta Raumanni, Satu Rekola, Nina Viitamäki
Music and sound design: Jukka Kääriäinen & Co
Musicians: Jukka Kääriäinen and Eero Savela
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Costume design: Tua Helve
Spatial design: Salla Salin
Producer: Inari Pesonen
Photo: Pirje Mykkänen

Interactive installation at Oksasenkatu 11 gallery, Helsinki, 2018

Sensorial Activities is an installation for voice. It is meant to be experienced one person at the time.

Work by: Meri Ekola
Interface programming and technical support: Ofer Smilansky

Installation in Area on R exhibition at Area 42, Brussels, 2017

The work takes its inspiration and literally embodies the idiom “the last drop makes the cup run over” found in many languages. It expresses how an insignificant addition to the burden renders it too much to bear and leads to the final collapse. A small and seemingly meaningless event, a falling drop, is transformed into another extend by enhancing and amplifying it’s power through light and sound. The emphasis is how the visual and the audible content are set in a dialogue to capture our attention and to enthral us.

Work by: Meri Ekola and Marc Melià
Photos: Meri Ekola

Theatre Rampe, Stuttgart, Germany, 2017
Lighting for performance.

We want to be trees.
We want to serve as carriers of time.
We want to be mushrooms, fungus deeply rhizomised.
We are nature. Object of nature. We are the point where nature and technology meet.
And – the sky is just there.

On stage: Mikko Bredenberg, Alice Ferl, Timo Fredriksson, Anna-Maija Terävä & Annika Tudeer
Light design: Meri Ekola
Sound design: Alice Ferl
Costume design: Tua Helve
Photo: Daniela Wolf

Albertinkatu 16, 00120 Helsinki, Finland, 2017
Light installation for OBJECT- exhibition and performance.

Exhibition

Performance

OBJECT is an exhibition and a performance based on the perplexing question of objectivity and subjectivity. It’s a constellation of different elements; light, video, audio, photography, performers, text, visuals, music and party. It was displayed on a retail space in central Helsinki for the month of May 2017.

With: Sonja Ahlfors, Angelina Bergenwall, Meri Ekola, Venla Helenius, Johan Isaksson, Malin Nyqvist, Klara Wenner Tångring, Joanna Wingren and Ilse Ybarra
Photo: Liina Aalto-Setälä

Installation at LUX In light art exhibition, Helsinki, 2017

How would we sense things if the obvious relation between auditory and visual would be broken into pieces like the lightning and the thunder in a storm? The installation “Cycles” portrays an abstraction of this phenomenon. It dissects how hearing and sight influence each other and puts into focus the way this duality of senses defines our perception of the space and time surrounding us.

“Cycles” consists of a ring with 17 illuminated large acrylic tubes hanging from the ceiling and a surrounding soundscape played by four loudspeakers placed in the room.

Work by: Meri Ekola and Marc Melià
Photos: Ainu Palmu

Svenska Teatern, Helsinki, Finland, 2015
Lighting and projections for theatre.

A theatre piece inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography for Le Sacre du printemps. Dealing with themes such as memory, the ephemeral character of choreography and its originality.

“..Suggestiv är Meri Ekolas video som sakta smulas sönder på skärmen – återigen en bild av konstens kamp med den skoningslösa tiden.” HBL 11.12.2015 Isabella Rothberg

Text and dramaturgy: Timo Fredrikson, Lina Teir, Annika Tudeer,
Performance: Timo Fredriksson and Annika Tudeer
Light and projection design: Meri Ekola
Sound design: Juuso Voltti
Costume design: Tua Helve
Photo: Antti Ahonen

Klockriketeatern, Helsinki, Finland, 2015
Lighting design for performance.

WORKING GROUP: SONJA AHLFORS, MARI PAIKKARI, MERI EKOLA, EMIL GRUDEMO EL HAYEK, EMMA HELLE, LIISA PENTTI, PAULIINA TURAKKA PURHONEN, JOUNI TAURIAINEN, JOANNA WINGREN

Photo: Esko Koivisto

ElectriCity Festival, LéSPACE, Helsinki, Finland, 2015
Visual design for concert.

Performances: 2015 Brass – Centre Culturel de Forest, Brussels, BE; Bar Kuka, Turku, FI;
Gallia Theatre, Saintes, FR 2016 Les Nuits Botaniques, Brussels, BE; Theatre Aan Zee, Oostende, BE; Deep In the Woods, BE; Leffingeleuren, BE; Reflektor, Liège, BE; Trix, Antwerp, BE; Ancienne Belgique, Bruxelles, BE

Music: Marc Melià
Visual design: Meri Ekola

Lighting design for live video recorded at l’Abbaye de Forest, Brussels, 2015

Performance, Concept & Editing: Marc Melià
Lighting: Meri Ekola
Camera: Louise Baduel, Tanja Frinta

Zodiak Center for New Dance, Helsinki, Finland, 2015
Lighting design for site-specific dance piece.

Concept: Andrius Katinas
Choreography and installation: Andrius Katinas, Vera Nevanlinna, Salla Salin
Performers: Ninu Lindfors, Vera Tegelman, Saara Töyrylä, Vera Nevanlinna, Andrius Katinas
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Sound design: Tuomas Norvio
Photo: Salla Salin

Teaterhuset Avantgarden, Trondheim, Norway, 2013
Lighting design for a performance.

On tour: 2013 Baltic Circle, Helsinki, Finland; 2014 Helsinki Festival, Finland; Pathos München, Heidelberger Stückemarkt, PACT Zollverein Essen,  Germany; 2015 Bunker, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Devising & on stage: Timo Fredriksson, Anna Krzystek (UK) & Annika Tudeer
Light design: Meri Ekola
Sound design: Juuso Voltti
Photo: Eija Mäkivuoti

Installation in Department of Light and Sound Design, Theatre Academy Helsinki, Finland, 2012

Installation combining light and watercress plants.