an alleviation of indigestion// I can still see us through the frosted glass, 2022

kaolin

Kaolin, a soft, white clay of fine particles, can prevent water loss and alleviate digestive pains. Over the last two years, I have reclaimed the same batch of kaolin; This kaolin is living, accumulating its own history from the environments it is reclaimed in and for.

Here, this clay body-as an embodied being- facilitates the alleviation of a pressing case of indigestion- a result of the tensions of an immovable structure.

Within the gallery space, a locked door with frosted glass permanently conceals transparency. There exists an inherent tension within the potential to not only go elsewhere, but to see what this elsewhere may be. All that we are able to see are the reflections of our silhouettes.

Kaolin has been smeared in each panel of the locked door, stimulating the accumulation of the environments it has lived in-and is currently living in. Gaps exist between smears, revealing parts of the frosted glass; although, as these exposed parts are still lightly coated in clay, even our silhouettes struggle to assert themselves.

As the clay dried-as the water evaporated from the clay- some pieces began to fall off and fall to the floor. This continued until the piece was completely bone dry. Each time a piece fell, it announced itself with a loud pop. This created little windows within the piece, allowing once again for one’s silhouette to find itself. The whole piece can be seen as a map, and as each piece of kaolin fell off, it revealed another. The kaolin left answers.

At the end of the exhibition, the kaolin was scraped off and was placed back into the same buckets. A portion of this kaolin was lost. I suppose, each time a kaolin installation is done, some is inevitably left to the environment it occupies. The kaolin remembers it all.