Abiding Within

Abiding Within includes twelve boxes the underlying idea of which is a series of quasi-sacred vessels, each box suggesting its own tacit story – be it that of a precious memory or a personal demon. It is a body of works strongly influenced by archeology, specifically mysterious containers in which were stored significant artifacts. I equate these unknown contents with our habit of fetishizing memories and events. We lock them away either for safekeeping or incarcerated to prevent them from wreaking havoc. Even the worst of them acquire a quality of the precious. 

The concept for this body arose from an observation of small clay boxes excavated from an archaeological site in the Levant, present day Israel. It is speculated that these boxes might have contained sacred texts. However, the actual nature of the original contents are lost in time

In Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews, he relates the discovery of [two arks], the archaeologist to whom he speaks refers to them as “God Boxes”. I became fascinated with the term and its implications of [God], a God, according to Schama, “… with neither face or form, …but many names”.