In his new installation From an Effort to a Cause created at the Cable Gallery, Masashi Echigo (b. 1982) from Japan mirrors the radical cultural shifts taking place in city spaces. This artist now working on a HIAP residency at the Cable Factory has found the construction materials for his work in the Suvilahti area of Helsinki, which is going through similar changes to those undergone by the Cable Factory and the Ruoholahti area a few decades ago.

Masashi Echigo works site-specifically. In spaces and places, he creates installations that last only for an instant. He then returns the objects that he has borrowed for the work to their owners. Echigo does not create ‘art for eternity’. All that remains is the viewer’s and the lenders of objects’ memories or impressions of the work and of the artist.