Raymonde van Santen rvansanten@verizon.net
Unrealized Projects fading memory
Part A and B fit in my ongoing exploration of the cycles of decay and renewal. They will visualize how the passage of time affects memory (Part A), and how memories need to be nurtured to remain present (Part B).
Part A Our obsession with youth and longevity, fueled by fear, keeps us silent and suppresses the reality of impermanence and decay. The temporary nature of the pieces of this project symbolizes the reality and nature of memory.
The work consists of many individual unfired pieces, cast from molds. Wet clay will shrink during firing and the process of successively firing and casting a cast of my own face will yield a set that is progressively smaller in size, with a gradual loss of detail. This represents a fading memory. These castings will provide the molds for the units of diminishing size, which will be placed in concentric circles - an ancient symbol for death – with the largest castings in the center. (Imagine the circles that appear and fade out when a stone is thrown in water.)
I will install these pieces in a shallow pond, and document their gradual distortion and disappearance by videotaping or photographing.
Part B This work explores how attending to memories keeps them alive. Viewers will be invited to play a part in this process. They will be asked to leave their mark on small unfired clay tablets, which after firing will be laid in ever-larger concentric circles on the ground, indoors, or outdoors in a courtyard. In the course of the day viewers who walk over the objects will distort the circles; at a specific time at the end of each day I, and any viewers that are present will restore the circles.
Note on why I use unfired clay
The raw clay holds past memories and can be seen as the depository of the collective unconscious. Because I am a human being, my unconscious is connected to that of the collective and thus my ideas originate from there and by extension are already embedded in the clay.
My manipulation of the clay extrapolates these ideas and gives them shape; in this materialized form I can share and communicate my ideas, visions with others.
The fragility of the unfired clay is an apt metaphor. I believe that ideas are not static, and that views need to be shattered at times to allow for new perspectives to emerge.
Once an idea has run its course, the clay in which it is embedded will disintegrate, and so return the elements of the idea back to the pool of the collective unconscious to be available for new materializations.
The cycle of the unfired clay is a poetic one and comparable to that of human life, which why it is appealing to me to work with.
Raymonde van Santen rvansanten@verizon.net
Unrealized Projects fading memory
Part A and B fit in my ongoing exploration of the cycles of decay and renewal. They will visualize how the passage of time affects memory (Part A), and how memories need to be nurtured to remain present (Part B).
Part A Our obsession with youth and longevity, fueled by fear, keeps us silent and suppresses the reality of impermanence and decay. The temporary nature of the pieces of this project symbolizes the reality and nature of memory.
The work consists of many individual unfired pieces, cast from molds. Wet clay will shrink during firing and the process of successively firing and casting a cast of my own face will yield a set that is progressively smaller in size, with a gradual loss of detail. This represents a fading memory. These castings will provide the molds for the units of diminishing size, which will be placed in concentric circles - an ancient symbol for death – with the largest castings in the center. (Imagine the circles that appear and fade out when a stone is thrown in water.)
I will install these pieces in a shallow pond, and document their gradual distortion and disappearance by videotaping or photographing.
Part B This work explores how attending to memories keeps them alive. Viewers will be invited to play a part in this process. They will be asked to leave their mark on small unfired clay tablets, which after firing will be laid in ever-larger concentric circles on the ground, indoors, or outdoors in a courtyard. In the course of the day viewers who walk over the objects will distort the circles; at a specific time at the end of each day I, and any viewers that are present will restore the circles.
Note on why I use unfired clay
The raw clay holds past memories and can be seen as the depository of the collective unconscious. Because I am a human being, my unconscious is connected to that of the collective and thus my ideas originate from there and by extension are already embedded in the clay.
My manipulation of the clay extrapolates these ideas and gives them shape; in this materialized form I can share and communicate my ideas, visions with others.
The fragility of the unfired clay is an apt metaphor. I believe that ideas are not static, and that views need to be shattered at times to allow for new perspectives to emerge.
Once an idea has run its course, the clay in which it is embedded will disintegrate, and so return the elements of the idea back to the pool of the collective unconscious to be available for new materializations.
The cycle of the unfired clay is a poetic one and comparable to that of human life, which why it is appealing to me to work with.