artist residency at Au Brana, France 2024, powered by Culture Moves Europe
These works were created during a residency in the rural south of France, inspired by the landscape and my evolving relationship with the land. Through encounters with local people and the environment, I found myself at a crossroads where language, memory, sacredness, and place intertwine.
Working with materials such as stone, bamboo, paper, and imagery from vintage magazines, I explored how language shapes our perception of landscape
I was also drawn to the idea of sacredness, especially knowing that the farm hosting the residency lies along the Camino de Santiago — the historic pilgrimage route ending in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Inspired by The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade, I began exploring my own connection to the sacred nature of land. This inquiry unfolded both visually and through touch, as I worked with stone to create sculptures that served as a tactile meditation on presence, place, and meaning.
The sacred and the profane, by Mircea Elliade
“By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone; apparently (or, more precisely, from the profane point of view), nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality. In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality. The cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany.”
