THE DAY THAT LIFE SEEMED ENDLESS

The common thread in my projects is the fear of transience, and linked to that the fear of becoming a spectator of my life instead of a participant in it. Perhaps in the background, the fear of death also plays a role. But at the same time I wonder if transience is such a bad thing. Maybe we should accept transience, even embrace it, because it also has a certain beauty? In my work, I distinguish two kinds of transience: slow transience, which is synchronous with time. And rapid transience, where a sudden event radically changes people's lives, for example as a result of a natural disaster or a war. For this project, I was inspired by the volcanic eruption in Pompeii in 79 AD. In this disaster, people were overwhelmed by death. Villagers in the Italian village were surprised by a cloud of volcanic ash and instantly became immortal. Time stood still after that, the people became icons of a forgotten time. In my opinion, Pompeii is more topical than ever, given the climate disasters and wars. Pompeii 2022 tries to be a mirror of our times, a metaphor for the vulnerability of mankind.