Unheimlich, 2023
Vinyl wood panels, paper pulp, orange juice, aluminium cast flies, AV light and sound.
Rooted in early explorations of descent - whether a fall, a sinking, or a drop into the earth or the self - Unheimlich (unhomely) presents a space structured by opposition. The upward glance toward an unreachable ceiling, the downward gaze into a widening crack in the cement floor. This is a liminal zone, heavy with the unspoken. It's a space of loss, decay, trauma, but also one that gestures towards hope, escape and an unseen elsewhere. What is it to be at home in the unhomely? To linger in this place? Inspired by Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden, the work resists a single reading. It touches on fractured psyches, inherited trauma, and the weight of collective responsibility, yet it remains suspended in ambiguity.
"And we, who always think of happiness rising, would feel the emotion that almost baffles us, when a happy thing falls."
- Rilke, Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy, translated by Edward Snow.
Unheimlich: Taken to Mallorca and Turned Upside-Down, 2025, featured at the Mallorca's inaugural art Bienalle.