Surcursida: Rebecca Clopath
2025: Collaboration with Rebecca Clopath: things that hold things
foraged wood, foraged clay: fired in an open fire
For me, these objects are an exploration of landscape. Zürich is not my place of birth. It is becoming home. What does knowing one’s home mean? Building a space to shelter from the wind and the rain, also hopefully to know the names of things. This naming is not a means of dominion but of greeting. I see a tree daily or weekly. I know its local name and the name from my mother tongue and the name science has given to it in attempts at categorization and dialectic. However, this tree has a physical name that I can not shape with my tongue. There is a presence in this branched and leafy life that will always be unknown to me. Its germination was hidden and not in my lifetime. I am unlikely to witness the tree’s decay into the guts of bugs and earthy humus. WIth attentiveness, perhaps I may play at learning a vowel or a consonant belonging to its ligneous name. Instead of shaping the intonation with my mouth and tongue, I use my hands and the sensitive skin of my fingertips to find a form that feels like a familiar and rare sound.
Imagine these shapes as a child's attempt to shape an essential word. They are parts of words without sounds. Words seeking utterance of a landscape.
