Anna Anisimova: And what if freedom of expression is seaweed?

Materials: some pieces of seaweed drifted ashore Midfjorden in Norway, white threads (thick wool and regular thin sewing threads).
August, 2025

Description:

My work is two books made of seaweed. I found this seaweed on the shore of Midfjorden in Norway. The seaweed washed up on the rocks. I soaked it in water again, then cut it into equal pieces and sewed it with white threads – like books.

When the seaweed book was wet – its pages were soft and you could read the book by hand. When the book dried – its pages shriveled and it became impossible to turn the pages because you can break it. But if you put the seaweed book into water again – its pages will speak again.

You can read this book in different ways:

• as a book about the possibility or impossibility of speaking;
• as a book about the ability to speak out in comfortable circumstances and the inability to do it in a foreign environment;
• as a book about the impossibility to express the whole truth, because artists cut material to create their work;
• as a book about existing the sea of opinions, but not all of them survive – some are washed up ashore;
• as a book about the fact that even in non-openable form the book continue to speak;
• etc.

So, if we imagine that freedom of expression is seaweed, how would you read this book?

Read Anna Anisimova’s text And what if freedom of expression is seaweed? in Russian

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Anna Anisimova is a children’s writer and author of artist’s books. She writes in Russian and has lived in Helsinki since 2018.