VICIOUS CIRCLE / Noidankehä – Sirkka-Liisa Sass

THE VICIOUS CIRCLE
January 20, 1999 – March 7, 1999
SIRKKA-LIISA SASS

The Vicious Circle exhibition is based on Sirkka-Liisa Sass’s personal history and medical journey. The exhibition explores illness through both medical documentation and the personal bodily history of Sirkka-Liisa Sass. Scoliosis, the lateral curvature of the spine, often results in visible physical deformation, shortened stature, and, in severe cases, the development of a rib hump. The primary material for the exhibition comes from Sass’s personal archives, with additional contributions from her German physician, Dr. Klaus Zielke. Photographer Stefan Bremer has also created a new photo series for the exhibition, featuring Finnish women living with scoliosis.

The exhibition’s collage-like installation includes photographs, texts, objects, video, and sound elements.

Sass’s partial victory over her illness, and her own “vicious circle,” is symbolized by a combination of a halo and a crown of thorns—a satirical proclamation of triumph. This dual symbol reflects her painful and lengthy treatments at a German clinic, where she underwent procedures involving a Halo frame screwed into her skull, corsets, and a steel rod implanted to support her spine. Sass often addresses her history of suffering with dark humor, including posing for photographs in her Halo frame and corset, portraying herself as a strikingly beautiful “machine.” Her courage in addressing her illness openly has allowed Sass to live with it after decades of shame and concealment.

The central theme of The Vicious Circle is the non-normative body: perceptions of health and illness, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, normal and abnormal. The exhibition tackles sensitive topics that are often unspoken or difficult to confront. In this era of artificial beauty ideals, The Vicious Circle is particularly relevant, inviting honest self-reflection and encouraging acceptance of oneself and others by breaking free from stereotypical, externally imposed definitions of beauty. Ultimately, the exhibition calls for a liberating embrace of life and connection with others—each of whom, as Sass notes, “carries their own hump.”

Curators:
Jari-Pekka Vanhala, Curator, Pori Art Museum
Marketta Seppälä, Director, FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange

The project was realized in collaboration with Orton Hospital, part of the Invalid Foundation.

Exhibition Publication:
ISBN 951-9355-70-7
Sirkka-Liisa Sass: Noidankehä / Teufelskreis
Pori Art Museum, January 20 – March 7, 1999
Editors: Jari-Pekka Vanhala, Hannele Kolsio
Text: Arja Elovirta, Art Historian, Helsinki
Translations: Peter Sass, Sirkka-Liisa Sass
Graphic Design: Katja Valanne
Photography: Stefan Bremer, C. Heggeman/Stern Magazine/Suomen Kuvapalvelu Oy, Juha-Pekka Laakio, Peter Sass, Erkki Valli-Jaakola
Printed by: Reprotalo
Publication supported by FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange