Building castles on sand - an expression that in my home town means working for something that will eventually crumble.
25 castles and a half. The last one unfinished. Standing on the floor, orderly, one next to the other.
Here I wanted to work on multiple ideas in one piece. I first bought a huge amount of sand with the idea of creating sand islands on the floor. But it was all too uncoordinated. Then came the castles.
Sand castles - the ultimate symbol of a child playing at the beach. Thus, from the very beginning, one is conditioned to believe that building castles is the most important thing in life. Success, prosperity, being big and solid and showing it to the world proud and loud. I liked the contradiction. Castles, made out of sand. Solidity meets fragility. Everything crumbles eventually. And the idea of solidity is nothing but a comforting illusion.
And then everything became coordinated. Every castle was carefully put inside a square of sand. Inspired by the architectural structure of a floor but also by the lining up of soldiers (memory from my military service). So the child has grown up and is now put in line to follow orders. Every sense of individuality is lost. All the same, standing in a line. And yet, each castle is uniquely different. But still put inside a square, protected, or more like isolated from the rest. This piece is about childhood and growing up, staying in touch with innocence while becoming structured. It’s a catharsis coming from the realisation of the inevitable corrupted nature of the human condition.
