My Book of Pearly Absence (2023)

Installation in six parts
Auf dem Sockel, Die Malerei, Klybeck-Areal, Basel, CH
Curated by Raphel Reichert and Lea Studinger

1. Root canal
2. How will I navigate this lightness?
3. A wish to bring order to this rebellious accumulation of dreams
4. I’m rooting for the mother
5. That’s what you wanted: to be a miniscule, nameless bit among many
6. I can’t seem to disintegrate

Fragments of an extracted molar lay under a magnifying glass on a plinth. The tooth, removed from the artist’s mouth and cleaned of its infected roots, becomes the basis for an investigation into her body of work; the root canal, a guiding principle for a feminist re-reading of a literary work in progress.
 
The resulting installation My Book of Pearly Absence combines manuscript pages, saliva, voice recordings, correspondence by letter and images of tree roots and teeth which evoke a space both in and much larger than an oral cavity. The work posits an artistic-literary practice as a poetic exploration of work interrupted. In Virginia Woolf’s words: a book to fit the body.

1. Root canal. Extracted tooth, screw, magnifying glass

2. How will I navigate this lightness? 162 pages of an unfinished manuscript, with omissions

3. A wish to bring order to this rebellious accumulation of dreams Video loop, 5’36” (installation view)

5. That’s what you wanted: to be a miniscule, nameless bit among many. Rug, straws, manuscript pages, saliva

Photos of 1. and 2. courtesy Lea Studinger (2023)