What’s been intriguing to me during this time of the pandemic, is the force behind being pushed into a state of stillness and silence, and in what ways I personally retreat in this form of affliction that determines who I am allowed to see and where I’m allowed to go. For me I have a lot of trouble with being kept still or limited to the spaces that I can go to. Escaping from NYC back to my hometown in California has been the best choice for me during this time as it has allowed me to have more places to escape to while still in seclusion. I have no trouble remaining in silence and still in nature, this has been something I’ve known for almost my whole life, but something I hadn’t noticed was forms and lines we create and indent into the Earth and our surroundings by physically interacting with these spaces.
After a few days of returning to this same one spot on top of this hill that I consider my favorite spot in my hometown, I began to notice the alterations my body had made to the space by lying and being a part of it. I began to take note of these changes over the course of different hours and times of the day, continuing to sit in this spot and rotate around it, recording its changes as I became acquainted with it. It amazed me by even this simple act of stillness and sitting in place, that I could create such a tangible mark to the landscape, that a body not injecting any forceful or intense actions onto the Earth or even a voice into the air, could still make known its presence. I had left my trace, I had escaped my apparent solitude by staying in place.
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a study in indentation-makingand watching
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march 2020