Nothing Elegant
HIAP, Helsinki International Artist-In-Residence Program, Cable Factory, Helsinki, 2007

In the exhibition Nothing Elegant, Saara Ekström uses the stream-of-consciousness poetry of Gertrude Stein - an American writer and important catalyst in the development of modern art and literature - as a starting point for her installation created specifically for the HIAP Project Room at Cable Factory. Gertrude Steins (1874 – 1946) rhythmical word-paintings or "portraits", were designed to evoke "the excitingness of pure being". Increasingly she developed her highly distinctive, playful and repetitive style. Critics have interpreted many of her experimental works as a feministic reworking of a patriarchal language. “Steins layered text flow gives me a feeling of a denser reality, which compresses and expands simultaneously. Her texts seems to slide open a curtain between two worlds and show us the hidden and secretive nature of common objects that surround us. This enchants me, since things are rarely what they seem to be. In the same way I want to search for the unseen nature of things and hope to catch a glimpse of their true existence.” The exhibition consists of an installation which combines animations, texts, videos and objects.