That which we cannot see

During my residency at PADA in Portugal, I submerged myself in the narrative of the place, walking, cycling, scanning for situations, details, or materials that triggered a response. I was tapping into the emotive history of the place, the sense of resonance, light, and the vibration of so many times sitting on top of one another. 

That which we cannot see was made from borrowed dimensions and materials. Borrowing and returning materials takes temporary to its furthest point of temporality. The building now exists only as images, and as an idea. The faded fibreglass was found only in one building, and the dimensions for the structure were borrowed from a small worker’s hut elsewhere on the site. I wanted to bring these two elements together, to construct a temporary building that becomes a vessel which momentarily holds and filters the light passing through it. 

Fibreglass derives its strength and endurance from trapping fibres in a liquid that becomes solid. It has the feeling of fixing something in time. Looking at these trapped fibres, revealed by the fading of the material and illuminated by the light flooding the vessel, is a way of grasping at something that is in flux – pressing pause on the flow of time, suspending the moment. “That which we cannot see” is ourselves in time and space, the quality of being in motion, of passing through, and the significance of any given moment in time.