In more concrete words, a group of participants, that can be anyone, is invited to take part in a timed experience, that is called a cycle, where they interact with ceramic objects on a wet clay field. Each cycle is divided in 3 time frames :
1st time frame:
Encounter with an object : Firstly the participant encounters an
object visually and by reading a short text that gives insights about the interaction with the object.
Secondly, the participant is invited to enter the stage though a
specific entrance and to interact with it in a controlled space for three minutes. The object only interacts with the clay.
The participants move only on the tiles or around the stage. This is an intimate moment between the object and the participant
designed to create a relationship between them. Each participant then turns their back on one another.
2nd time frame:
The controlled space opens to the entire stage. The participants can now interact on the open surface and with each other. What was before a relationship between a single person and an object becomes part of a larger system where several people and objects come together.
3rd time frame:
When the second time frame is over, the participants are invited to grab a piece from the last family of objects, the erasers. By themselves or collaboratively, they will slowly erase their presence on the stage by rolling the erasers, until only the deep traces that cannot
be erased are left.
When a cycle is finished, a new one can start with a new participants. As the new cycle starts, the new participants don’t enter a virgin space.
They see the traces that the wet clay left on the objects when being used in the previous cycle. Even though you as a participant experience one cycle, the traces give you the information that you’ve entered a space that has had a life.
In the installation, the participant is confronted with a novel and abstract physical context. The reason for this is that with this environment and the rules provided, a representation of the cyclical everyday is built.
On this stage the participants are exposed to the potential of exploring these parameters through their interaction with the objects and the other participants. This shows us that there can be freedom or possibilities in our perceived restraint. After everything is erased, all that’s left are the deepest traces and the participants own memory,
in the mind and in the body.
To exist within the world means we can all too often get used to it, to forget it. The project We are at a crossroads places us on a built stage, with handmade objects and into a system that mimics our own. The space creates a dedicated frame to explore but above all it
tolerates deviance by allowing for a glitch in our patterns.
