Elena Etter
Graphic Designer & Visual Thinker
Elena is a graphic designer & visual thinker currently living in London. Her passion for communication has led her to typography: a practice revolving around words and languages, writing as a form of process, text as a piece of design. For Elena, language is at the core of what we do and who we are. At Wildbiyoo, she’ll be exploring what it means to be human through an investigation of words, stories, and ways of seeing.
A published author, Elena latest book is an invitation to think about the many ways of writing, outside of the usual scope of literary practice. To think about it in terms of the ready-made, of using existing language as material for new combinations; a way of weaving together various threads of other people’s words into a tonally cohesive whole. It explores the idea that there's joy in finding ourselves in someone else's voice – that's nothing but our shared human experience.
In times of change, how can we use storytelling to awake people's minds to re-connect with our planet? Elena believes that the successful communication of information can make a huge impact in how we relate to the world, to one another, and be a force of change. We are at the mercy of ever-accumulating language, and it exerts an undeniable pull on the way we perceive, think, and create. Language is the most powerful tool we have: let's use it.
Find out more: http://elenaetter.com/
Residency Artwork
A Story Shift
Elena: "I believe that language is at the core of what we do and who we are. We are at the mercy of ever-accumulating language, and it exerts an undeniable pull on the way we perceive, think, and create.
A story shift, my project at Wildbiyoo, explores what it means to be human through an investigation of words and stories. In times of change, how can we use stories to awaken people's minds to re-connect with our planet? In addition to it not being an easy story to tell, climate change hasn't necessarily proved to be a good story -- we fail, generally, to believe in it. Through my project I question how we should tell the story of the planetary crisis so that it is believable in the sense of narrowing the distance between awareness and feeling, in order to actually change our behaviour and allow us to avoid extinction."
Painted in bold colours on materials found at Khaama Kethna, Elena's signs, appearing consistently across the festival grounds, powerfully weaved the theme of climate emergency through the scattered spaces. Encountering the words and the lettering in various corners drew you into a pause, offering the chance for moments of solitary appraisal during the otherwise vibrantly energetic weekend, of the shock and urgency of accepting the reality of what we've done to the planet.