Monument of the sea
This was once a shelter
Liever in het Nederlands lezen? De vertaalde versie vind je hier →
This was once a shelter,
for a soft and sticky creature.
Built from scratch,
personal taste,
all wishes fulfilled.
Now it’s abandoned
and I sometimes feel like a squatter.
Dream mansion,
slightly broken,
declared uninhabitable.
The owner doesn’t know
carefully I keep watch over this home.
Dissolved,
soft and sticky,
nothing left to be found.
A small compartment from an old type case
surrounded by other treasures,
here at home.
Without a resident,
monument of the sea.
⁂
✶ Collections are organic, living gather-things; they arise spontaneously and grow independently — even when you lose sight of them for a while. Monument of the Sea is the first piece in the growing series: Shellter. In this series, I explore the shell as both shelter and carrier of memory.
Is it a vacant building, a ruin layered with history, a remnant or perhaps a new beginning?
Shellter is a form of research through making, without fixed conclusions, unfolding in different forms. Symbolic, poetic, and sometimes almost alchemical experiments: writings, illustrations, photographs, and jewelry.
On my website, Shellter unfolds in slow, sedimented layers here →
✦ Images are from the precious matters personal collection: now part of this growing archive. A lifetime of small moments, gathered with care: fragments of a soft universe in the making.
✧ Originally written in Dutch by Merel Slootheer. Translated with care and intuition by Blackbird Ditchlord.
Everything here grows slowly,
with care, in my own rhythm.
𓆑 𓂃 ˖ ݁.