Milja Viita: Micromégas, A pa p = la Terre

Premiering in the Darkroom, the experimental period film Micromégas, A Pa p = la Terre (2026) takes viewers on the trail of an eighteenth-century scientific expedition from Paris to the Torne Valley. Shot on film and drawing creatively on archival materials, the work explores the human endeavour to measure and understand the world, alongside the uncertainty of our knowledge, perceptions and memories.

The film takes as its starting point the scientific expedition led by the French scholar Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, which investigated the shape of the Earth in the Torne Valley in 1736–1737. Measurements taken in demanding northern conditions supported Newton’s theory that the Earth is flattened at the poles. Alongside this scientific journey, the film draws on Voltaire’s philosophical science-fiction tale Micromégas (1752), in which a giant from outer space observes the Earth and its tiny inhabitants. The story’s biting humour targets humanity’s self-centredness and faith in the limitless power of its knowledge. Viita’s work likewise reflects on humanity’s place in the world and the limits of human understanding.

Viita developed and shot the film during an artist residency in Paris, where she studied the expedition’s notes, diaries, drawings and letters in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences. She was deeply impressed by the harsh conditions and uncompromising rigour of the fieldwork revealed in these materials. Interspersed with the expedition’s scientific observations, accounts of heavy rain, freezing temperatures, mosquitoes and assistance from local people brought to life the physical demands of the journey and the need to work on the environment’s terms.

Embodiment is also central to Viita’s approach to filming. She uses a heavy, hand-cranked film camera without a tripod or image stabiliser, allowing her body’s movements to register directly in the image. The swaying image comes into focus only momentarily, echoing the unreliability of memory. Viita’s evocative soundscape also creates a connection with the past. Piano music developed from the ticking of an eighteenth-century longcase clock recorded in Paris introduces the rhythm of timekeeping into the film. The world takes shape through a dialogue between observation, measurement and imagination.

Milja Viita (b. 1974) is a visual artist and filmmaker, and a recent recipient of the State Prize for Media Art, whose practice combines archival materials with personal observations and the materiality of film. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2005 and has since taught filmmaking there. Her works have been shown widely in museums, galleries and at international film festivals, and are held in collections including those of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Serlachius, and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.

The production of the work was supported by AVEK. The artist’s work was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency.