interactive installation, Nowhere 2015
wood, plywood, mirror foil, dry-erasable markers, unbleached cotton, wind chimes
lead artist, concept and design
Concept
Imagine being in front of a fogged mirror in your home, at those moments that you are at rest and in peace. You start to write. There is no necessity, you just write. You feel free to let the words flow because they can easily be removed with only a single wipe. You really start out loosely drawing and writing, but in the process your deeper consciousness takes you to places where you need to be. In between, you wipe the mirror clean, to create more space for your story, every time you clean the slate you look yourself in the eye and reach deeper.
Now think of a sundial, in which the ever changing angle of the sun rays create a continuously changing projection on the desert soil, a reminder of the here and now, of the coming and going of light and dark, of eternity and impermanence.
At the Temple of Reflection you are inside thise sundial and surrounded by mirrors, on which you can express your deepest thoughts and wipe them away to clear the mirror and look deeper into your own soul.
Design
The Temple of Reflection has an overall design that aims to enable both the communal and the private experience; to facilitate the transformative aspect of being at Nowhere.
It was influenced by diverse inspirations of sacred, spiritual, memorial, and experiential spaces and buildings from different parts of the world. Amongst them are Oscar Niemeyer’s cathedral in Brasilia, Zen Buddhist temples and specifically their influence on the architecture of Kenzo Tange, the Poème Electronique building by Le Corbusier, and the Martyrs Memorial in Algiers by Bachir Telles.
The basic shape that repeats itself in the structure of the Temple is an octagon. The octagon has a common or similar symbolism in cultures and philosophies ranging from Buddhism to Islam to Paganism: regeneration, totality, rebirth, transition, and the interplay between heaven and earth, the eternal and the temporary.
Its exterior shape and design consists of connected legs that curve inwards, upwards, and then outwards into ‘spires’, in a movement that could be seen symbolic for processes of individual and collective growth and transformation. Suspended from the legs are pieces of white shadow fabric, tension-suspend outwards and downwards; white because it’s associated with the sacred, purity and virtue, but also mourning. They create four openings to enter the temple, for the four directions of the wind.
