“Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami” is a Polish phrase which Heta Saukkonen learned while visiting a Polish family. The phrase is a tongue twister which the artist repeated several times before asking its meaning. “Table with broken legs,” was the answer.

The phrase made a lasting impression on Saukkonen. She began to think how an ordinary utterance can reveal an otherwise covered phenomenon – tables that brake from their legs so systematically, that it needs to be described by a word of its own.

Powyłamywanymi, the word meaning breakage in the phrase, has no meaning outside this context. Decomposing the object removes its function, the reason for its existence. As removing the foot mutilates the table and makes it unusable, removing the word from its phrase makes them both meaningless.

Powyłamywanymi shows the systematic breakage as a phenomenon and through it reflects disorders in society, the body or other systems.

Heta Saukkonen (b. 1990) has a Bachelor of Arts from Aalto University and currently completes master’s degrees in Photography at Aalto University and in Time and Space Arts at University of the Arts Helsinki. She works in the borderline between the visual and the verbal and is interested in the absurd, systems and the unexplainable. Powyłamywanymi is a part of Saukkonen’s master degree work from Aalto University.

Crew:
Heta Saukkonen – director, editor, vfx / Hannu Käki – cinematographer, colorist, vfx / Pietari Bagge – scenographer / Jarkko Kela – sound designer

Thank you:
Piotr Światlak and family, Nina Forsman, Terttu Hilli, Niklas Kilpeläinen, Janne Käki, Jyrki Parantainen, Ulla Räsänen, parents

30.1–22.2.2015
HETA SAUKKONEN
Powyłamywanymi

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