A NEW ORDER

2017 / follow up on the project "Constructing the Past"

I used to work as a restorer. Fixing old fireplaces. I filled holes and sculpted fragments, sanding plaster and painting ornaments. It took time and patience to get them renewed, and it is a beautiful, meditative process. But in essence, the act of restoration is contradicting. Although after restoration the visual appearance of the object is closer to a state it once was, the process of filling holes, sanding and painting over is actually taking the artefact much further from its original state. The process of restoring is ‘destroying’ the original.

I took used objects from my table and restored them back to the ‘original’ state with restoration plaster. The resulting objects have lost their function while regaining the shape they once had. Because of the lost functionality, they will remain ‘complete’ for a much longer period of time, simply because nobody would be able to use them.

Whenever one recalls about the past, they actually will construct a new version of it, with errors. I like to think of these 'errors' as fruits of our willingness to construct links between everything we perceive in order to comprehend the world around us.

CONSOLIDATION ENTAILS FRAGMENTATION

Combining the fragments of a broken plate with a different interpretation of what is the correct way to put the puzzle back together.