Sam Bachy
To Wither and Weather
Sam Bachy (1991) Is an Irish visual artist and scenographer based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. His work primarily translates through mixed-media installations and durational processes as participatory setups with the audience. Sam’s research is invested in questions of homely shelters and fragmented memories, situated in landscapes of global anxieties and psychological relations between time and place.
April 24-25, 2021
Wither (verb)
1. (of a plant) become dry and shriveled.
2. Fall into decay or decline.
Weather (verb)
1. To expose to the open air: subject to the elements
2. To bear up against and come safely through
Outside, the world is rapidly changing in ways we can predict less and less. Waves of solastalgia crash over us as our streets and neighborhoods become unhomely and unknown. As entropy increases and disorder grows we have retreated indoors, into safety, to spaces of perceived control. We can manage it from here, we can weather this storm.As a child at night, when the once familiar world became ambiguous and unknown, I used to make forts out of blankets and pillows, and from there I would be safe, secure in my shelter.
Not just a physical shelter, but a mental one. Is that so different from how we react now? Is retreating indoors, into spaces of repetition and comfort and away from the unpredictable, any different?To Wither and Weather aims to explore this notion of mental shelter through the conflation of childlike fort spaces with routines and rituals, acts of repetition and comfort that we can predict and take comfort in domestic life itself.The tea leaves are picked, withered and oxidized, packaged and sold. The water is boiled and poured over the leaves. A series of entropic actions that transmute matter and leave us with a cup of tea, of comfort. To settle down with and look outside the shelter. Through repetition and routine we can predict the outcomes in here, even if not out there. Perhaps we can even begin to predict our futures.
1. (of a plant) become dry and shriveled.
2. Fall into decay or decline.
Weather (verb)
1. To expose to the open air: subject to the elements
2. To bear up against and come safely through
Outside, the world is rapidly changing in ways we can predict less and less. Waves of solastalgia crash over us as our streets and neighborhoods become unhomely and unknown. As entropy increases and disorder grows we have retreated indoors, into safety, to spaces of perceived control. We can manage it from here, we can weather this storm.As a child at night, when the once familiar world became ambiguous and unknown, I used to make forts out of blankets and pillows, and from there I would be safe, secure in my shelter.
Not just a physical shelter, but a mental one. Is that so different from how we react now? Is retreating indoors, into spaces of repetition and comfort and away from the unpredictable, any different?To Wither and Weather aims to explore this notion of mental shelter through the conflation of childlike fort spaces with routines and rituals, acts of repetition and comfort that we can predict and take comfort in domestic life itself.The tea leaves are picked, withered and oxidized, packaged and sold. The water is boiled and poured over the leaves. A series of entropic actions that transmute matter and leave us with a cup of tea, of comfort. To settle down with and look outside the shelter. Through repetition and routine we can predict the outcomes in here, even if not out there. Perhaps we can even begin to predict our futures.
Photography credits:Hosein Danesh, Anđela Vidić