Prior to Studio

Something Creative

I made this sculpture "Reverberations" in response to contemplations about life and ones impact once life had ceased. Perhaps we move through life like one would read a book, a linear journey from beginning to end. Or, do we reach like reeds that grow towards the sunlight beyond the shadow of authorities of high culture, in an attempt to transcend into spiritual realms? With every action we leave our trace and cast a shadow. I wanted to ask my audience; if you could scan the landscape of your life, what would you write on your pages? What sound would echo from within you? What shadow would you like to cast? "Reverberations" was made out of mixed media, including steel for the legs and base, forton for the book, perspex for the turned page and the found objects of the reeds and the piano core.

A Great Piece of Architecture

(accessed 7.3.10 from www.thorstenchimmel.de/tsfoto/museo/museo12.html)

In 1989, just after the fall of the Berlin wall, Daniel Libeskind won a competition to build the Holocaust Museum of Berlin, which in my opinion, is a truly great piece of architecture because it manages to stimulate visually, emotionally and intellectually. Libeskind uses the building itself as a means of communication, and in many ways, its exhibits are secondary to the museum's structure when conveying the horrors of the holocaust. The public is led through a zigzag based on the connecting lines between historic events locations and culture. There are three main paths through the museum, one of which ends in a dead end, enabling one to empathise with the finality and death which so many experienced. The angular lines are jarring and help portray the severity of the subject matter, the building cuts into the skyline, reminiscent of a wound such as the Holocaust on humanity, and its zinc facade is scratches and slitted. Libeskind works with themes of absence and voids, within the museum are numerous 'voids', rooms which can be seen but not entered which highlight the lives, and the culture which were lost and exist only in the intangible memory. Libeskind worked with light and shadow, enabling the hope and devastation to be felt as one passes through the museum. I hope that in the future, I will be able to visit and first hand experience Libeskind's vision.

Something Beautiful

This is a photograph of my cousin's engagement ring, which in itself is beautiful. However the intrinsic beauty of the ring is far surpassed by the beautiful potential it represents. It marks the threshold to a new stage of life and is laden with endless hope, optimism and excitement. In this photograph the ring dangles in space, between the shadow of the past and the light of the future certain only of the love and beauty of the present and hope that it never fades.