The works of Pia Sandström often deal with installations and texts. Her works show her interest in layers of reality and fiction, everyday life and magic made visible. Her works border between the picture and the literary. The texts are often presented in the form of a book, as parts of installations or as solitary pieces – as in the ongoing project One paged books[1] (2004-) As her starting point she uses the different sides of consciousness; tendencies and feelings both being on the surface as well as lying latent beneath. Current themes her works evolve around are memory, the feeling of longing and loss, and a drive to share experiences with others. Pia Sandström´s works make one think beyond the conventional borders and categories and they open up a space of participation, emotional as well as factual.
At Huuto Gallery Pia Sandström will show her work This side of the forest longing for the great ocean (2007) a container for narratives on the web. It’s both a letter resembling a poster concerning memory, wandering of thoughts, personal and geographical realities and a web site comprised of works made by the audience through an open call in response to the poster. The work derives from the current state of affairs where mobility has both a front side as well as a back side, irrespectively moving from one place to another ad up and becoming part of one’s private history.
Wanted: research assistant for project already under way (2006) is an installation in the shape of a fictious biography based on the book ‘The Blindfold’ (Sceptre 1994) by Siri Hustvedt.
In the exhibition the viewer is facing different objects and props that tell a story about another human beeing. The objects carry memories and fantasies, some sort of keys for unlocking another existence.
At Huuto Gallery she will also show The Association, a book about a work of art, The Loop, a book without a beginning or an end and One paged books
Labyrinth Archive ->
TextKonst ->
Marina Ciglar
More:
piasandstrom.com
thissideoftheforest.net
botkyrka.se/konsthallen
The exhibition has been made with support from IASPIS – International Artists Studio Program In Sweden, Kulturkontakt Nord and Botkyrka kommun
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Labyrinth Archive
”Those who imagine a limitless universe forget that within it exists only a certain number of books. I dare to suggest the following solution to this ancient problem: the library is unlimited and periodical”. (From Jorge Luis Borges ”The Library of Babel”, 1963.)
With this quote from Jorge Luis Borges, Botkyrka Konsthall invited artists to contribute to the Artist Book-exhibition Labyrinth, 18/11 2006 – 31/1 2007 an international exhibition which examined how the book is used as an artistic expression in contemporary art today. More than one hundred artists and artists’ collectives from different countries participated.
The term Artist Book was minted in United States in 1960s by artists experimenting with new ways of shaping and spreading art. There are also further information that even earlier in 1920, russians like El Lissitsky and Ilia Zdanevich where pioneers working with the book as an alternative art form. But Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Dieter Rot and Ed Ruscha from 1962 has been claimed as the first Artist Book ever made. Soon the Artist Book became an artistic expression unto itself.
An Artist Book is a book or a bookish object where an artist’s involvement has been of vital importance. It’s a manifestation of an artist’s creativity and an artwork proper/itself. This definition excludes most exhibition catalogues, magazines, papers, etc.
The exhibition was comissioned by Pia Sandström, artist, and Joanna Sandell, director at Botkyrka Konsthall. Pia Sandström also created the set design as a circular library with site specific furniture. A catalogue that corresponded to the exhibition architecture was also produced. Neither the exhibition nor the catalogue had a beginning or an end – instead there were unlimited number of entrances and exits, as the labyrinth-like book Jorge Luis Borges describes in his short story The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). Also the visitor was able to borrow some of the artist’s books in the exhibition. Labyrinth is currently in development and will be back in Botkyrka Konsthall in a new improved version during 2008.
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TextKonst is a project in process in Galleria Huuto since 2005. The idea is to initiate, show and increase cooperation between artists working on the borders between text and image in Sweden and Finland.
By inviting the Swedish artist Pia Sandström and The Project Labyrinth from Botkyrka Arthall we now turn the perspective and pick our point of departure from the Artists point of view.
We are very proud and happy to present Pia Sandströms work and at the same so many different and interesting pieces of art that combine, question and show us what an image and a text can be. We therefore want to thank all the participating artists that generously gives us opportunity to se parts of the extensive Project Labyrinth from Botkyrka Arthall.
Marirna Ciglar
Background of TekstiTaide
In the summer of 2005, in co-operation with NIFCA (Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art), Galleria Huuto produced in the Viiskulma premises an exhibition by Cecilia Grönberg and Jonas (J) Magnusson. The exhibition was given a ISBN code, which made the premises become a book.
TextTaide – TextKonst part I
In co-operation with the Swedish poetry magazine, OEI, and a Finnish one, Tuli&Savu, Galleria Huuto Viiskulma produced an exhibition of Jörgen Gassilewski and Anna Hallberg from Sweden and Cia Rinne from Finland. On November 22, 2005, thirty poets and artists performed non-stop in Dubrovnik Lounge and Lobby, a “cultural and recreational complex” in Helsinki (http://www.andorra.fi/en/index.html).
In the summer of 2006, an exhibition curated by composer, poet, and publisher Jukka-Pekka Kervinen was held in the Viiskulma premises of Galleria Huuto. The exhibition, Post-taide ja Visuaalinen runous (“Post-Art and Visual Poetry”) consisted of the works of nine American visual poets and around a hundred post-artists.
TekstiKonst – TextTaide part II
During September 15 and 16, 2006, in Café Edenborg and Ugglan in Stockholm, the poetry magazine OEI presented translated Finnish contemporary poetry called suOmEI (edited by Leevi Lehto). A visual part called VisuOmEI was included, the curators of which were Marina Ciglar and Fredrik Hertzberg. A non-stop show by the name of Finnish Poetry Now was held in co-operation with the Tuli&Savu magazine, which also demonstrated a TekstiTaide reading project of Stefan Hammaréns poem.
(TextTaide – TekstiKonst parts I and II were organized in association with Finnish, Swedish-speaking Finnish and Swedish artists and poets: Galleria Huuto (Marina Ciglar), Tuli&Savu poetry magazine (chief editor Miia Toivio), and OEI poetry magazine (chief editor Jonas (J) Magnusson, and correspondent in Helsinki Fredrik Hertzberg), as well as Leevi Lehto (Kriitinen Korkeakoulu and the Poetic Conference.)
