Samsara: When, Where and in What Form Shall We Meet Again?

Abstract

This research paper addresses the inspiration and processes behind my ceramic sculpture project, Samsara, consists of twenty female bust (head-and-shoulder) figures of ceramics with and without a female face, filled with slip casted forms of seasonal natural organic debris. These bust figures will be exhibited on the base of recycled earth which symbolises the endless cycle of life and death on earth. The project seeks to explore the relationship between our physical bodies, death and our relationship with nature. The aim of the project is to evoke the relationship between nature and humans: Our life is ephemeral, but nature goes on long after we pass. We-human beings do not rule nature but are dependent on it. Like an interlinked DNA strand, the relationship between nature and humans is eternally joined together, and it is the purpose of my art work Samsara to evoke this dynamic and symbiotic relationship. Ultimately, this project seeks to explore nature as the ultimate objectivity and vanitas as a key to subjectivity in human life. The concept of ‘difference and repetition’ and ‘Body without Organs’ by Gilles Deleuze resonate with the foundation of this project. I see the structure of reality and matter of creation in this concept. Truth is a matter of the irresolvable, but is a very immanent thing which really exists as invisible form. Creation is a matter of finding difference in the field of repetition. To me, researching ‘difference and repetition’ is a way to find a different beginning of my creation: finding a new value on the old field of dominance. In this project, I explore and express the Buddhist concept of samsara which means ‘go together’ - the eternal cycle of life and death, and the concept of vanitas artists Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Malcom Poynter, Kate MacDowell and Christopher Relander through the medium of ceramics.