Monument I

Earth.
30 x 30 x 28 cm




The Distance Between Everything

WORK IN PROGRESS.
Gravel and glue.
25 x 25 x 25 cm (to be)
March 2010

Studio shot

My studio space at the beginning of March 2010.

Nature

Three pinched and molded papers.
Each 84 x 59,4 cm
January 2010





Accumulation

Three photographs with accompanying text.
February 2010.




















































When we opened the door to the apartment it was absolutely silent and still. The only movement in there was the red blinking of several digital clocks. But since they all showed 00:00 this steady pulse only emphasized the feeling that time stood still here; that this was a jinxed moment. It was as though the human habitat had automatically withdrawn from the rest of the world once the human presence had left.

At closer inspection, this lair had shed its bonds with the outside long before its owner had been forced out of it. Even its worldly borders; its walls, had disappeared behind timeless barriers of books. It was a cave. Stalagmites in front of windows, debris of meals on the few patches of open floorspace. Here, the shadows playing on the walls had been an escape from an overwhelming and disappointing sensory world. In an ironic reverse of Plato this was a prison built of collected knowledge.

Not that knowledge had been the primary goal here. The compulsive urge to collect had long overshadowed any functional use the objects might have. And as the content of the books had become unattainable, so had the prospect of order and overview. It seemed that the collecting itself had lost its reason.

But if the past is the luxury to own, a collection of this kind might constitute a desperate attempt at retreating completely to times gone by. And now that it’s all been shattered, sold out or burned; have we lost the past as we’ve lost the artefacts? What role does a photograph play as a substitute?

Do I own this past now?