Artist Statement:
What is this?
The (Death of a) Thing emerged as a feeling.
Where did this feeling come from?
The other place, it seems.
(Wherever that is.)
It simply appeared.
It was a sort of perception or sensitivity to something.
It first took the shape of a sentiment, which took the shape of a curation, a musing, a monologue. A manifesto? (This curation, musing, monologue (manifesto?)) appeared in a few days’ time during the late autumn of 2023).
So if you want to start from the beginning, to begin with the prelude, you must start here with the emotions. 🧜♀️
That it arrived prompted the two of us to begin a conversation about the idea of
The (Death of a) Thing.
What died?
Well...
Things in our lives are always hanging in the balance between what was, what is, and what will be.
However, the beginning isn’t always so clear as a baby or the ending as unambiguous as a final rite.
We experience endings that are beginning and beginnings that are ending all of the time.
... the beginning isn’t always so clear as a baby or the ending as unambiguous as a final rite...
We’re always phasing out of the way we are—or were. These beginnings that are ending and endings that are beginning form a sort of invisible swirl of death and birth around us.
But this swirl is hard to put our finger on, unless we pause and intentionally put our finger on it.
Unless we pay attention to the uncanny feeling.
The disappearance.
The death.
(Of things).
We decided that as creators we have more to say about this discombobulating feeling. Research says this uncanny awareness is the key emotion underlying our disorientation as we juxtapose our familiar ways—our rituals and acts of being—the things that have steadied us in our daily lives; with the uncertainty of making our way to a new future.
We want to recognize that we feel this way.
We want to honor the things we see disappearing (before they completely drop out of sight).
So we’re creating a space for The (Death of a) Thing to be.
We’re thinking of it as The Last Catalog—a register—an evolving index—to catch and capture and notate the The (Death of a) Thing.
The Catalog is its own ritual—its own rite.
We’re creating here a register of the things we feel are leaving. Things that seem to be to flickering out—fading a little before our eyes.
One thing by one thing.
Only the future will tell if it was the (death of this) thing.
Or if the thing survived.
Signed,