Birth of Conciousness - The Lighthouse Within
Video Installation by Meri Helmi / Mariam Haji
Presented at Suomenlinna Church, Helsinki

​

In this deeply symbolic video installation, Meri Helmi working through the dual lens of her artistic identities, Meri Helmi and Mariam Haji returns to the primordial moment of human awakening: the act of Eve reaching for the fruit. This gesture, often burdened by narratives of shame and sin, is reframed here as a radical embrace of knowledge and self-awareness. It marks the beginning of a cyclical human story of independence, failure, longing, and the desire to return to something greater than oneself.

​

Set within the resonant space of Suomenlinna Church, a historic lighthouse and sacred site, the installation invites viewers to consider consciousness as a form of inner light guiding us through the fog of self-reliance and failure, toward the truth many rediscover in divine connection. Just as the church’s beacon has long led seafarers back to safety, so too can the search for meaning draw us back to God. In this work, the figure of Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" becomes a compass, not as dogma, but as a symbol of return, of reunion, of grace.

​

This piece forms part of Meri Helmi's broader evolution from the sensual introspections of Mariam Haji into a language that integrates the sacred with the philosophical. The installation honors the tension between human autonomy and spiritual dependence, reflecting an artist navigating her own journey of self-definition, exile, and return.

​

By situating this narrative within a site where light, sea, and spirit converge, the work becomes a meditation on faith as a homecoming, on the ways knowledge can estrange us from innocence, yet ultimately lead us, through struggle, back to love and light.