18NOR_SCB_artists_Saara_Ekstrom_3

BEACON (2019)
8mm film transferred to HD video
Courtesy of the artist 

BEACON (2019) is a performance, expanded cinema event and an 8 mm film documenting endangered plants, sea life and insects from the Finnish archipelago. It is a mobile projection made to be taken out of the gallery context and into the streets, right among the people living in the community of Stavanger.

As a beacon guides ships through the darkness, illuminating random pieces of land and sea, the work aims to guide and direct our attention to small and seemingly unremarkable things living, breathing and growing around us. In collaboration with researchers from the Archipelago Research Institute, a part of the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Ekström documents endangered plants, sea life and insects affected, not only by the climate change, but also by the aggressively growing foresting industry and fish farming, dictated by an exploitive appetite that ignores the dramatic effects it will have on biodiversity. The Institute participates in multidisciplinary research of the Baltic Sea, with a special focus on long term environmental monitoring of the Archipelago Sea. The film consists of observations on both macro- and microlevel, and it will be shot on 8mm B&W film. 

BEACON has been commissioned by the Screen City Biennial and will be premiered during the upcoming edition Ecologies - lost, found and continued.


BIO

Saara Ekström (b. 1965 in Turku, Finland) lives and works in Turku. Her work has been shown extensively in Finnish and international group and solo exhibitions in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010. Her works have been acquired by several public collections in Finland and abroad.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Diverse medias are combined to create worlds in which reality and fiction, growth and withering, memories and oblivion entwine. Perishing, temporality, and the stratification of history are themes that recur  in her work, which communicates through a narrative based on metaphors, signs and associations. Ekström is drawn to materials, objects and images that embody strong symbolic values, while questioning our conventional ways of classifying and evaluating matter. Chronotopes, where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes. The ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are all at the core of Saara Ekström’s art.

BEACON (2019)
8mm film transferred to HD video
Courtesy of the artist 

BEACON (2019) is a performance, expanded cinema event and an 8 mm film documenting endangered plants, sea life and insects from the Finnish archipelago. It is a mobile projection made to be taken out of the gallery context and into the streets, right among the people living in the community of Stavanger.

As a beacon guides ships through the darkness, illuminating random pieces of land and sea, the work aims to guide and direct our attention to small and seemingly unremarkable things living, breathing and growing around us. In collaboration with researchers from the Archipelago Research Institute, a part of the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Ekström documents endangered plants, sea life and insects affected, not only by the climate change, but also by the aggressively growing foresting industry and fish farming, dictated by an exploitive appetite that ignores the dramatic effects it will have on biodiversity. The Institute participates in multidisciplinary research of the Baltic Sea, with a special focus on long term environmental monitoring of the Archipelago Sea. The film consists of observations on both macro- and microlevel, and it will be shot on 8mm B&W film. 

BEACON has been commissioned by the Screen City Biennial and will be premiered during the upcoming edition Ecologies - lost, found and continued.


BIO

Saara Ekström (b. 1965 in Turku, Finland) lives and works in Turku. Her work has been shown extensively in Finnish and international group and solo exhibitions in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010. Her works have been acquired by several public collections in Finland and abroad.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Diverse medias are combined to create worlds in which reality and fiction, growth and withering, memories and oblivion entwine. Perishing, temporality, and the stratification of history are themes that recur  in her work, which communicates through a narrative based on metaphors, signs and associations. Ekström is drawn to materials, objects and images that embody strong symbolic values, while questioning our conventional ways of classifying and evaluating matter. Chronotopes, where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes. The ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are all at the core of Saara Ekström’s art.

BEACON (2019)
8mm film transferred to HD video
Courtesy of the artist 

BEACON (2019) is a performance, expanded cinema event and an 8 mm film documenting endangered plants, sea life and insects from the Finnish archipelago. It is a mobile projection made to be taken out of the gallery context and into the streets, right among the people living in the community of Stavanger.

As a beacon guides ships through the darkness, illuminating random pieces of land and sea, the work aims to guide and direct our attention to small and seemingly unremarkable things living, breathing and growing around us. In collaboration with researchers from the Archipelago Research Institute, a part of the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Ekström documents endangered plants, sea life and insects affected, not only by the climate change, but also by the aggressively growing foresting industry and fish farming, dictated by an exploitive appetite that ignores the dramatic effects it will have on biodiversity. The Institute participates in multidisciplinary research of the Baltic Sea, with a special focus on long term environmental monitoring of the Archipelago Sea. The film consists of observations on both macro- and microlevel, and it will be shot on 8mm B&W film. 

BEACON has been commissioned by the Screen City Biennial and will be premiered during the upcoming edition Ecologies - lost, found and continued.


BIO

Saara Ekström (b. 1965 in Turku, Finland) lives and works in Turku. Her work has been shown extensively in Finnish and international group and solo exhibitions in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010. Her works have been acquired by several public collections in Finland and abroad.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Diverse medias are combined to create worlds in which reality and fiction, growth and withering, memories and oblivion entwine. Perishing, temporality, and the stratification of history are themes that recur  in her work, which communicates through a narrative based on metaphors, signs and associations. Ekström is drawn to materials, objects and images that embody strong symbolic values, while questioning our conventional ways of classifying and evaluating matter. Chronotopes, where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes. The ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are all at the core of Saara Ekström’s art.

BEACON (2019)
8mm film transferred to HD video
Courtesy of the artist 

BEACON (2019) is a performance, expanded cinema event and an 8 mm film documenting endangered plants, sea life and insects from the Finnish archipelago. It is a mobile projection made to be taken out of the gallery context and into the streets, right among the people living in the community of Stavanger.

As a beacon guides ships through the darkness, illuminating random pieces of land and sea, the work aims to guide and direct our attention to small and seemingly unremarkable things living, breathing and growing around us. In collaboration with researchers from the Archipelago Research Institute, a part of the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Ekström documents endangered plants, sea life and insects affected, not only by the climate change, but also by the aggressively growing foresting industry and fish farming, dictated by an exploitive appetite that ignores the dramatic effects it will have on biodiversity. The Institute participates in multidisciplinary research of the Baltic Sea, with a special focus on long term environmental monitoring of the Archipelago Sea. The film consists of observations on both macro- and microlevel, and it will be shot on 8mm B&W film. 

BEACON has been commissioned by the Screen City Biennial and will be premiered during the upcoming edition Ecologies - lost, found and continued.


BIO

Saara Ekström (b. 1965 in Turku, Finland) lives and works in Turku. Her work has been shown extensively in Finnish and international group and solo exhibitions in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010. Her works have been acquired by several public collections in Finland and abroad.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Diverse medias are combined to create worlds in which reality and fiction, growth and withering, memories and oblivion entwine. Perishing, temporality, and the stratification of history are themes that recur  in her work, which communicates through a narrative based on metaphors, signs and associations. Ekström is drawn to materials, objects and images that embody strong symbolic values, while questioning our conventional ways of classifying and evaluating matter. Chronotopes, where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes. The ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are all at the core of Saara Ekström’s art.

BEACON (2019)
8mm film transferred to HD video
Courtesy of the artist 

BEACON (2019) is a performance, expanded cinema event and an 8 mm film documenting endangered plants, sea life and insects from the Finnish archipelago. It is a mobile projection made to be taken out of the gallery context and into the streets, right among the people living in the community of Stavanger.

As a beacon guides ships through the darkness, illuminating random pieces of land and sea, the work aims to guide and direct our attention to small and seemingly unremarkable things living, breathing and growing around us. In collaboration with researchers from the Archipelago Research Institute, a part of the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Ekström documents endangered plants, sea life and insects affected, not only by the climate change, but also by the aggressively growing foresting industry and fish farming, dictated by an exploitive appetite that ignores the dramatic effects it will have on biodiversity. The Institute participates in multidisciplinary research of the Baltic Sea, with a special focus on long term environmental monitoring of the Archipelago Sea. The film consists of observations on both macro- and microlevel, and it will be shot on 8mm B&W film. 

BEACON has been commissioned by the Screen City Biennial and will be premiered during the upcoming edition Ecologies - lost, found and continued.


BIO

Saara Ekström (b. 1965 in Turku, Finland) lives and works in Turku. Her work has been shown extensively in Finnish and international group and solo exhibitions in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010. Her works have been acquired by several public collections in Finland and abroad.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Diverse medias are combined to create worlds in which reality and fiction, growth and withering, memories and oblivion entwine. Perishing, temporality, and the stratification of history are themes that recur  in her work, which communicates through a narrative based on metaphors, signs and associations. Ekström is drawn to materials, objects and images that embody strong symbolic values, while questioning our conventional ways of classifying and evaluating matter. Chronotopes, where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes. The ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are all at the core of Saara Ekström’s art.

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