(…) everything is transformed

(…) everything is transformed

(back)

In this work, I combined shredded pieces of bark with strips of bent wood, which I arranged in a fan-like form.
It references Antoine Lavoisier’s maxim on the conservation of mass which states that, despite a new object being produced during a chemical reaction between other objects, the mass of that new outcome is equal to the sum of the masses of the objects present before the reaction. No mass is lost, nor created. The transformation applies to the relationship between the building blocks of the objects present before the reaction. These building blocks are re-organised into a new network which gives form to the altered outcome(s) of unchanged total mass.

In this conceptualised approach, there is a parallel between the re-organisation of the building blocks during the chemical reaction that give rise to the new outcome and the shuffling of ideas and visualisation of images that come to mind whilst viewing this object. The same familiar materials taken out of context and arranged in a certain manner may prompt different interpretations depending on the viewer’s experience and references.

The title references Antoine Lavoisier’s maxim on the conservation of mass:

‘Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme’

‘Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed’