Spring 2023
The metaphors related to soil form a central thematical area in the process. We live on a stony planet, that over the evolution of hundreds of millions of years grew a thin organic layer on top of it, a skin of the planet. Generative farmers and gardeners I am collaborating in my ongoing artistic research project Trophic Verses, often come to saying that the skin needs a blanket. It should always have a cover, and not left bear over the winter in agricultural use for example. These notion are anthropomorphic but they help to demonstrate that the soil is indeed a living volume. Landscapes turn from two dimensional surfaces to cubic meters – and landscape art gets another kind of motivation, not to depict the proportions, qualities and circumstances on the surface, but an invitation to dive in.
Autumn 2023
Putting together the parts of the sculpture. The bronze objects casted in sand, the glass chambers blown by human breath and sculpted with gravity and hands, the electronics that are a result of humans complex technological quest. There lies always a certain absurdity in our operations. This time, mixed with an ethos of regeneration. But the process doesn't regenerate the natural surroundings, it doesn't protect, create or restore habitats. The regeneration is directed to the human body. It is a devide with measuring sensors, but the outcome is not numerical. The sensor itself is a metaphor for connection per se, for the acknowledgement of the overlooked agencies. And the resonance that the soil's humidity and temperature data manipulates – a resonance that happens on the terms of that particular unique glass shape that took place – is a signal to our bodies, not to be understood anymore as a numeric value but as a happening of attention.
Summer 2023
Artistic production comes from a need to create a speculative window or a portal through which one can, or possible could, connect with other dimensions of our everyday life and its perception. For me it is about enriching life but in a way that the things as they are, the obvious if you like, could be better reached by us humans. It is also about reminding about the anthropocentric premise that dominates our world-view. How often, midst our daily commutes for example, are we thinking how the worms and other soil animals are doing for example?
December 2022
The process starts with an onsite visit to Amstelpark, Amsterdam during the winter time. To me the starting point to any work is an instantaneous, bodily reaction to the site where the project is rooted in. At the park my attention directed to the different ways the land, in the context of an urban park that we are in, is being gardened, stewarded. Which areas of the park are covered with asphalt, which areas have the the shortest grass, which areas the falling leafs are collected away from, and where perhaps the soil can aggregate unattended.
