YG18ET
Recycled plastic Parlay thread, gypsum, steel, wood, fabric, feathers, love, time. Size variable.
Photos: Barbara Cilliers
Thoughtscape
Recycled plastic Parlay thread, gypsum, steel, wood, fabric, feathers, love, time. Size variable.
Photos: Barbara Cilliers
Site specific installation
“...my mind seems to go out on a path the width of a thread and of endless length, a thread that is the same colour as the night. Out, out along the narrow highway sails my mind, driven by curiosity, luminous with acceptance, far and out, like a feathered hook whipped deep into the light above the stream by a magnificent cast.”
- Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers 1966
- Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers 1966
The starting point for the installation is the above quote by Leonard Cohen that reads “My mind seems to go out on a path the width of a thread...”. In the installation, a single thread - a thought - travels the extents of the room, taking on different forms throughout it’s ‘journey’.
I imagine the thread to be similar to our thoughts and our experiences of lifeas they take on differing forms depending on our surroundings and the situations we find ourselves in.
In this delicate installation, the gallery space is treated as an exoskeleton, or, as in weaving, a loom. The continuous black line extends from the spindle at the entrance. It dives into the loom frames on the wall, creating fields of intense density before skipping to a nail on the adjacent wall, from where it continues to a point on the floor, back up to the ceiling, across the room. From here the line falls towards the floor, loops through a hook in a plaster block, and then retraces its steps, leaving a straight black trail of transformative movement.
I imagine the thread to be similar to our thoughts and our experiences of lifeas they take on differing forms depending on our surroundings and the situations we find ourselves in.
In this delicate installation, the gallery space is treated as an exoskeleton, or, as in weaving, a loom. The continuous black line extends from the spindle at the entrance. It dives into the loom frames on the wall, creating fields of intense density before skipping to a nail on the adjacent wall, from where it continues to a point on the floor, back up to the ceiling, across the room. From here the line falls towards the floor, loops through a hook in a plaster block, and then retraces its steps, leaving a straight black trail of transformative movement.
Reminiscent of my training as an architect, the installation overlays the space with something akin to a line drawing, a materialized vector model of spatial potentiality.
Three objects—seemingly unrelated as much as potential inhabitants—anchor the string installation: a pink pillow on legs, a hairy brick that refuses incorporation into brick walls and an elusive string cube. These objects seem to assert their independence from spatial, functional and cultural systems, treading a fine line of non-appropriation. We are reminded, that although thoughts are immaterial, they give shape to the material world, like a loom frame or an invisible exoskeleton.
- Thank you to Natalie Koerner for her contribution to this text and for curating the exhibition ‘Fine Lines’ with Nanna Rosenfeldt-Olsen and myself at Dzialdov in Berlin, September 2018.
Three objects—seemingly unrelated as much as potential inhabitants—anchor the string installation: a pink pillow on legs, a hairy brick that refuses incorporation into brick walls and an elusive string cube. These objects seem to assert their independence from spatial, functional and cultural systems, treading a fine line of non-appropriation. We are reminded, that although thoughts are immaterial, they give shape to the material world, like a loom frame or an invisible exoskeleton.
- Thank you to Natalie Koerner for her contribution to this text and for curating the exhibition ‘Fine Lines’ with Nanna Rosenfeldt-Olsen and myself at Dzialdov in Berlin, September 2018.
