Saara Ekström’s solo exhibition Amnion is open at the Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, from November 3–23. Amnion is a thin membrane forming a fluid filled sac, which provides protection for the developing embryo.

Landfill sites on the fringes of cities are disturbing archives, that reveal all of our habits, culture, wealth and poverty. Inside the trash bag-incubators the waste multiplies and rises high to become a monument in the blind spot of mankind. The landfills are full of melancholic and windswept imitations of life, leftovers sealed inside plastic amber, discarded welfare and abandoned cheap labor. The 8 mm film titled Amnion examines the life generating inside garbage bags, and the organic residue becoming merged with eternal trash. The waste drifting in air currents and the twitchingly opening plastic bags are an allegory of a world, in which the debris we produce is our Dorian Gray’s portrait. It’s a mirror land that feels more powerful than ours and in which the plastic snakes its way into the spiral of our DNA.

AVEK awarded visual artist Saara Ekström lives and works in Turku, Finland. In her video, photography and installation works, Ekström is interested in natural and artificial materials that embody strong symbolic values. She has participated in several national and international exhibitions since 1986. She was a candidate for the Ars Fennica Award in 2002 and the artist of the year of Helsinki Festival in 2005. Ekström’s extensive solo exhibitions have been seen at Amos Anderson Art Museum in 2005 and at Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma in 2011. Her works are represented in many collections in Finland and internationally.

Saara Ekström: Amnion at the Youkobo Art Space, November 3–23 2018, Tokyo, Japan

More information: Youkobo Art Space