Filmmaker and video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila was born in Hameenlinna, Finland, in 1959; and lives and works in Helsinki. She attended Helsinki University from 1980-1985; and studied filmmaking at the London College of Printing (1990-1991), University of California, Los Angeles, and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles (1994-1995). Prior to focusing on film and video in the 1990s, Ahtila experimented with photography, installation, and performance. Influenced by philosophy, institutional critique, feminist thought, and issues of identity, she employs a deft placement of screen and image to examine psychological states, particularly within the experience of trauma.

Drawn from

• Charles Wylie, "From Object to Image: Sculpture, Installation, Media," in Fast forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, eds. María de Corral and John R. Lane (Dallas Museum of Art ; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 223-227.
• John-Paul Stonard, "Ahtila, Eija-Liisa," Grove Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T097034?q=Ahtila%2C+Eija-Liisa&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit. Accessed December 28, 2015.

• Bomb Magazine
  Read an interview with Eija-Liisa Ahitla.