For her exhibition at P/////AKT, Stéphanie Saadé will expand one of her time calligrams, It is…, into a full-scale installation, transforming the entire space into a time-counting machine. The time calligrams are a series of innovative performative works Saadé has been developing over the past few years. These pieces involve writing time as we have learned to measure it: hours follow the path of the hour hand on an analogue clock, while minutes trace the movement of the minute hand.
From this process emerges both an anatomy of time and a reflection on language, in this case, English. The sequence of letters used to represent time generates distinct forms, revealing a structure that speaks to both temporality and communication. Saadé employs a consistent, precise handwriting to ensure these “anatomies” are clearly defined—a handwriting reminiscent of the script taught in school, which echoes the experience of a child learning to write.
Another school lesson resurfaces in Saadé’s work: writing numbers out in full, as we often did in early education. This rarely-used skill is given new life through the time calligrams. A tension arises between the time represented and the time it takes to write it: a day, an hour, or a minute, to write a minute, an hour, a day.
