a diary of straw and seawater
2024
Installation for the Open Studios at PAiR Residency, Latvia
Grass mural and installation
(materials: lichen, pebbles, wood, thread, moss, grass, shells, amber, sand, wild clay)
A visual diary containing stories about my encounters with the coastal landscape of Pāvilosta, where I did a month-long artist residency.
The installation showed an in-between moment of my creative process where trials, failures and findings were equally valued and allowed to exist simultaneously, presented as a landscape of curated, sometimes slightly modified, found material from the surrounding area of dunes.
I was wondering how to work with these existing forms. Whether there is a collaboration possible between the inherent structures of natural shapes and the modification by a human hand, what would for instance be the natural curve of a blade of grass? All the displayed material visualized this dialog while exploring themes such as temporality, scale and our interaction with non-human forces, questioning: how can I illuminate what is already there and showcase nature's handwriting while at the same time expressing my own?
At the end of the residency, all materials were returned to the sea in ceramic vessels made from clay that I harvested on the beach.
I am assembling a landscape, storing its salty air on the surface of my skin and hiding grains of sand in my shoes. I write my diary with coastlines, while the movements of swaying lyme grass whisper the words to me. I capture its sceneries through the light-sensing cells of the retina and pin them to my memory with pine needles. I gather the soil with my fingertips, bundle leaves and make piles of washed-up pebbles. How can you record a landscape with your whole body? Can you assemble something that is already a whole? How do you become part of the collection yourself?
