Client: Museum of Art and Design

Overview

Art work for the Exhibition “Swept Away – Dust, Ashes and Dirt in Contemporary Art” curated by David McFadden for Museum of Art and Design. Initial artwork was made from sand, wood and glue but the final product was a video.

Goals

I was working on a piece made of sand , wood and glue celebrating the beauty of the Islamic Calligraphy I was fascinated by the almost liquid flow of the sand particles, as if it it would be a fourth state of water. I grabbed the video camera and started filming the process. Editing and syncing with music made it into an art video that was the curator's choice for the exhibition.

Process

This project implied finding some technical solutions when I had to perform more than one operation at the same time, like in the case of filming and manipulating the flow of sand simultaneously. The music was composed by Daniel Dorobantu. Anca Meret did the research for the documentation of project.

Additional Information

The video offers a bird’s-eye view of a sand field that constantly changes as wind blows across it. The sand moves and collects in specific patterns until a calligraphic rendering of the first verse of the Quran emerges, only to be swallowed up again by the shifting sands. It made me think of a paradoxical alternate universe where water is dry.”