Vaguement (Clinker)

Vaguement (Clinker), clinker lumps, variable dimensions, 2018

Vaguement (clinker) is a work developed during my staying at La Déviation, a former production plant for concrete and lime (called formerly La Coloniale) and actually a self-organized space for research on living and visual arts, where people live and work together sharing a common and political idea against private property. The site is surrounded by white and steep cliffs and occasionally you can hear little rocks falling down the metastable hills shaped by the extraction activity, while the Mistral wind makes oscillate all the wild plants all over: at the same time people down in the workshop site work all day long to take care of the site, to make artistic research and keep the community alive.

From a concrete production plant in Italy I took with me a bucket of clinker, a basic product in the manufacture of cement, produced by sintering limestone and clay materials. I used this material to work on and study the rhythm and movement in La Déviation. As clinker is formed by black, powder lumps between 3 and 25mm in diameter, aligning them one after the other with their different dimensions, makes me able to resemble patterns and frequencies that I observed and heard around me. Moreover the sinuous shape of the cliffs inspired me for the overall movement of this almost living creature that has to feel out the ground to adjust its direction.

The work is part of the event Potlatch.