Helenelund usually works with sculptures made out of textiles. One starting point for this exhibition has been rags – leftovers, gaps, remnants that come about when bits are cut off during the form-finding work on the sculptures. The woven material in the exhibition consists of these leftovers, recycled old artworks, carpet rags, and sheets that Helenelund has dyed. She took up weaving as a technique while living at Pro Artibus’ Villa Snäcksund residence. “Weaving was something I had long wanted to learn, and Snäcksund gave me the time and the peace and quiet for this slow process. Rags – the unwanted, the leftover, the frayed – gradually became my material. Weaving creates a kind of act of healing, when all the small fragments are joined together,” she says.
Helenelund’s second starting point has been the floor. The floor is where the bits end up as leftovers when they are cut off, but it also ultimately becomes the home for the rag rugs once they are woven. Thus, the significance of the floor also varies throughout our lives. How does the floor hold us up when we feel broken, and how does it hold us up when we have sat or lain down on it to meditate or daydream? All the works in the exhibition mirror perceived floor states, glimpses and instants when something more intense has emerged – moments of clarity or brokenness – and when the floor has borne an extra-heavy weight. Helenelund shows us colors that embrace us – states in which words suddenly play less of a role, this also being reflected in the works’ one-word titles. A single word can still have several meanings: a well can be a source that gives, but also something one can fall into. The deep can be frightening and take us too far down, but turning deep inwards can be a path to solace.
Words remain present in the books on top of the blue work Djupet. The text and images in the books also reflect on different mental states bound up with the rags and the floor. We invite the audience to lie down on the blue work – to take a moment for their own thoughts or to take a look at the books.
Eveliina Tuulonen
