The Spaces In Between
I tried for a long time to justify my paper thoughts. At often they were fragmented; a little all over the place. a ceramic bowl of age old cheerios floating in milk.
In those moments I would marvel over the small, modest reactions of chemistry... the fizz and pop as the milk reacts with the cereal. The transitory juncture between solids, liquids and gases that depicted our very own transitory pilgrimage on earth. I was never good at physics though, nor chemistry, but i was observant... noticing onion skins leaking pigment; staining its own blush onto fabrics... butter melting into an ample desert: a potent pungency of bubbles... water lazily numbing itself into pocket sized or colossal architectural bodies.
It was never a matter of weighing one against the other. water against ice. ice against air... for they were all the same 'nothingness'. Yet it was those breathing moments in between, these changing states; much like our own.
In Greek - EdnEpoç - ephemeros, translates to "lasting only one day"... something that is transitory; existing only briefly.
So here we lay... in an ephemeral place; during an ephemeral moment in time, discussing ephemeral junctures. Simply being. Yet 'to be' is again not always easy to translate across all borders.
In Spanish and Portuguese, there are two verbs which mean "to be" unlike "sein" in German, "être" in French or "to be" in English.
Ser: is permanent state of "being" and takes the acronym "DOCTOR"
date
occupation
characteristics
time
origin
relation
Estar: is changeable and temporary state of "being" and takes the acronym
"PLACE"
position
location
action
condition
emotion
For a long long time I felt comfortable with my "ser" but still needed to figure out my "estar".
A few years ago, I absentmindedly began 'about time' as a personal dialogue of photography... perhaps it was an attempt to seize another ephemeral 'organism': time. Something that none of us can quite sever and slice into complete understanding. Did it answer any of my questioning? No. Yet it did provide permanent points to fleeting observations.
So here I am continuing that dialogue on 'transitory tragedies' through 'paper thoughts', marrying it with words.
For in this way one observes life. Whether that be personal and intimate or public; anthropological or environmental... You study life itself. You study all its paradoxes; its juxtapositions... day and night, peace and war, life and death, sun and stars. Yet you also find that soft spot of marriage, where it all weds and connects and it all caresses and kisses... like elbows quietly touching.
For in life there are stories. Stories that need to be voiced. Some of these paper thoughts will be for me: just a territory of expression. Others will be about others... their stories... their narratives… and hopefully a location for their voices to be heard. A place whereby strings of words and images can do something simple. Evoke feeling.
Perhaps it will act as an umbilical states of 'being' as they transition cord connecting stories and identities of femininity, concepts of home, migration, and human experiences; perhaps weaving themselves into a creative liminal space that sew together modes of journalistic storytelling into their own palpable atmosphere.
Mostly though, to hopefully bring awareness and just maybe... provoke change... and just maybe... allow YOU to have a paper thought of your own. For although these are my 'paper thoughts’; they are also everyone else's narratives...
Whereby strings of words and images but alone; together. can do something simple. Evoke feeling. So here we lay, observing our changeable and temporary liquid states of ‘being’ as they transition into solids.
