Port of Art, Ars Baltica, Kotka, Finland
Installation with golden gelatine and 7 steel benches.
Every Day is a Miracle, Eero Laajo, Etelä-Saimaa
Jeannette Christensen from Norway has built her work into the old bomb shelter in Isopusto. The space is damp like a cellar. The moisture is floating like fog near the ceiling. Down on the ground are seven metal benches with tubular feet, each bench covered with a thick yellow layer of gelatine. The work is titled Every Day is a Miracle. This installation has lived its life here for the past one and a half months. What was originally virgin jelly has now been taken over by white mold and brown areas that form a delicate structure on the surface of the jelly. Christensen is interested in the work’s own temporal life, temporality, destruction and beauty.
Every Day is a Miracle is site-specific art at its best. It is impossible to imagine the work in any other place. Artist’s expression is reduced to minimum, all unnecessary things have been left away. And above all this, the work shows a quiet miracle during every new day. The gelatine work by Christensen is located next to the Greek-Orthodox Church of Saint Nikolaus.
Translated from Finnish by Jyrki Siukonen.