Bound
Bound is an installation that addresses the theme of isolation and the intrinsic value that we give to the people that we love. A human body, my best friend, is in a state halfway through levitating and drowning in a swelling mass of black substance. It stands to represent how prolonged forced isolation and distance can start to erase the bond that keeps people linked to each other and the experiences that those people shared. It was born, along with Matter, out of an assignment to come up with a project aimed at revealing the hidden. While still preserving that initial direction, it evolved in a deeper reflection on the (hopefully temporary) universal condition of lockdown of these times, and especially of early 2020, when everyone was forced to stay locked up at home, possibly in a foreign country, cut off from all those that we love. However, I found it could extend its reach to situations like memory loss, degenerative diseases in loved ones and depression.
This project is still in progress.
Three levels
The title of the project works on three levels. Most explicitly, the body is bound by the black mass that is swallowing it. In addition to that, the same body is also bound to the memory that it bears in the form of a photograph, or, rather, person and memory are bound to each other. Finally, both the person and the memory are bound to a third individual that is reflecting and thinking about them and whose bond is being destroyed by the black mass, in this case me.
The device that carries the duty of delivering the memory is a 35 mm photograph taken during a holiday together in Berlin, during which the German capital became my friend’s favourite foreign city. The photo is then analogically printed on a cast of my friend’s torso.
At the moment, the piece consists only on a partial torso cast, but it will develop in an installation featuring parts of the whole body and an element of transformation.
