Saara Ekström’s Shadow Codex (2021) is screened at several film festivals during September and October. It was selected for the “Experimental International Showcase Shorts Program” at Shorts Mexico, taking place online until September 30. Shadow Codex will also be screened at FLIGHT – Mostra Internationale del Cinema di Genova, the screening taking place on Tuesday, September 28, at 21:00 in Nickelodeon. In October, Shadow Codex will be screened at Lund Architecture Film Festival, taking place from October 15–17 in Sweden.
Filmed at the abandoned facilities of Turku County Prison (1835–2007), Shadow Codex documents the layers of messages drawn, burned and scratched on cell walls. The markings are pathways to the shadows of an individual’s psyche and expose an underbelly which a society both generates and hides. The 8mm film becomes the codex of a collapsed civilization and evidence of a forbidden zone in the centre of the city. The flow of images is punctuated by John Cage’s (1912–1992) composition “Perilous Night” (1964), which has been called a journey to the dark side of the soul.
Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Chronotopes where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes, the ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are at the core of her art. Ekström’s work has been shown extensively 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.
Shorts Mexico, September 1–30 2021, Festhome
FLIGHT – Mostra Internationale del Cinema di Genova, September 26 – October 2 2021, Italy
Lund Architecture Film Festival, October 15–17 2021, Sweden