Milja Viita’s film installation People on Sunday opens at Serlachius in Finland

Milja Viita (b. 1974) is known for her experimental and material-oriented work. She shot People on Sunday on the 35mm film format familiar from the film industry and developed much of the material by hand. As a physical material, film is an important part of the meaning of the work and it has also influenced the workflow. Viita started making the film seven years ago in 2019.

For her films, Viita draws on personal experiences and reflections on existence, which she combines with scientific or social observations. Her new work is inspired by the German classic film Menschen am Sonntag (1930), which portrayed the leisure time of young adults in Berlin between the world wars. The film is now remembered particularly as the “last summer” before the rise of Nazism and the devastation of the Second World War.

People on Sunday refers directly to its German predecessor. Less than a hundred years later, the far right is on the rise again in different parts of the world. One of the questions posed in the work relates to the repetition of historical events and humankind’s inability to learn from them.

Human time and natural time

People on Sunday presents ten portraits. The work does not feature actual actors, but people from the artist’s close circle. Some of the people photographed are engaged in some fairly everyday activity, while others are just looking at the camera. The portraits reference a scene halfway through the film Menschen am Sonntag, where a photographer takes portraits of people. The presence of the camera makes some people feel uncomfortable, others to pose.Everyone reacts to being photographed in their own way.

The passage of time is at the heart of Viita’s work. In the film, human time and natural time are juxtaposed. Natural processes can be quite slow, and human life is a mere blink of an eye in this perspective. The scenes in the film focusing on the different stages of people’s lives remind us of this.

Music also plays an important role in Viita’s production. In the work People on Sunday, this is particularly evident in two scenes in which we hear the Prelude in E minor (BWV 938), composed by J.S. Bach for his 9-year-old child 300years ago. The prelude is heard played on a church organ and, in the final scene, on an accordion. The universal language of music enchants from century to century and reminds us that people can create something beautiful.

The exhibition People on Sunday is curated by PhD Tomi Moisio, Curator at Serlachius Museum. The 73-minute film will be on display at Serlachius Manor from 13 September 2025 to 19 April 2026.

Visual artist and filmmaker Milja Viita

Milja Viita is an award-winning and internationally renowned artist living and working in Porvoo, Finland. She graduated from the Time and Space Arts department of the Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and currently works as a teacher at the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts.

Viita won the Risto Jarva Award at the Tampere Film Festival in 2019 with her film Animal Bridge U-3033 (2018). The archive-based film Skönärit, which depicts the life of old seafarers and was funded by the Lönnström Art Museum, premiered as a live performance in late 2024. The work won a special mention by the jury at the DocPoint Film Festival 2025.

Viita’s works are in the collections of Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. Viita’s works has been shown in museums, galleries, on television and at several major international film festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Kurtzfilmtage Oberhausen, Hot Docs, DocPoint and the Sodankylä Film Festival. Viita’s productions are distributed by Light Cone, an avant-garde film distribution centre in Paris, the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre in Toronto, and the Centre for Finnish Media Art AV-Arkki.

Press releases and photographs: https://serlachius.fi/en/for-media

Further information and image requests: Susanna Yläjärvi, Information Officer, Serlachius, tel. +358 (0)50 560 0156, susanna.ylajarvi@serlachius.fi

Serlachius is open:

in the winter season, 1 September–31 May, from Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am–6 pm

in the summer season, 1 June–31 August, every day 10 am–6 pm

Visiting addresses:

Serlachius Manor, Joenniementie 47, Mänttä, Finland 

Serlachius Headquarters, R. Erik Serlachiuksen katu 2, Mänttä, Finland

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