Collection of misplaced fragments
All images
Ink pen, tracing paper
1:50 scale
On the Isle of Sheppey, stories have layers that must be peeled off to reveal corresponding fragments. These fragments can be found scattered through the landscape - like the breadcrumbs left behind by Hansel and Gretel, that one must follow in search of the whole. Is that whole the gingerbread house found at the end of the breadcrumb trail? Or maybe it is like the castle in Kafka’s novel? As fragments multiply, one leading to the other, the amalgam, the whole made up from these fragments gives the impression it will materialize into one monumental structure – the essence of history itself. But in fact, like the castle, it can never be reached.
The landscape of the Isle of Sheppey is a palimpsest on which historic traces are read. In totality they make up only a fraction of the island’s narrative. Ruled by the laws of entropy evident on a basic physical scale, the island is impregnated with an intangible rhizome of narratives too complex to be experienced simultaneously. Creating that very phenomenon of the tenuous reality. Narratives, however, are subjective and reliant on who they are told by. Allowing the creation of a subjective and physical; archive that enables an understanding of the secondary level of entropy existent on the island - metaphysical entropy. This condition can only be observed when context is given to a found fragment.
The present on the island is fleeting and intangible but through the telling of history it becomes a commodity gifted to the listener by the teller. Momentarily disrupting the natural flow of entropy. No narrative identical to the other but through all the present is both observed and created at the same time.
The fragments that are found or have not yet been transferred to a permanent site are stationed at the site of the old St James church located at a remote point on the island, through the years it has served as a storage on many occasions. When stationed some of the fragments will still gain a function.
“Te lapa is an unexplained light phenomenon. That happens only on the wide waters of the southern Pacific Ocean. A burst of light occurring on or just below the surface of the water. It originates from the islands that are hidden by the vastness of the water and sky. Polynesian navigators use it like a beacon to reorientate themselves in the search of undiscovered land. The fleeting moment of orientation experienced through the Te lapa phenomenon is analogous to the moment during the transfer of historic knowledge or simple storytelling. As history is spoken it becomes a lens that allows you to relate the seemingly misplaced objects to your physical surroundings and place them on a timeline of the landscape. Stories that become palpable and visible all around as soon as they are told.”