Hand-Held
2021


Mini projector video installation with suspended hand-built ceramics (stoneware and porous earthenware) and a plastic kettle.

Combining the slow, tactile practice of handbuilding ceramics with projected memory of place (my own videos from home and places I have travelled to and felt a strange connection to), Hand-Held contemplates the intangible sensory accumulation we absorb and store, forming connection to place through embodied cellular memory, the interdependence and interconnection of living systems, and the knowing unconscious. These connections are fragmented, misplaced or completely disconnected by the grind of everyday life, social conditioning and consumer culture (which superficially immitates and puppets real connection), resulting in dreamlike, suspended realities – like politics resembling a bizarre staged theatre production, or social conventions morphing into absurd performativity contents – shifting the focus away from what is needed to ground and nurture a living being.



During this phase, the writers and artists of influence include Gloria Anzaldúa, Tyson Yunkaporta, Paul Callaghan and ideas centred on ecocultural identity, embodied cognition, neurophenomenology and embodied sensemaking.



The full essay on Hand-Held and bodily connection to place can be read here.