At the edge of return
Bronze sand-cast object and mould, exhibited as separated pairs
2025

 

 






This work consists of a bronze cast vessel and its mould. Sometimes divided by sea, other times by land, they are always held in a state of separation. It begins with a gesture of longing.

The geological formation of Libyan Desert Glass, a natural silica glass found scattered in the desert between Libya and Egypt, was created by the intense heat of a meteor airburst 29 million years ago. In a moment of violent heat and contact, the sand became both container and medium for the object’s emergence: the desert rendered molten, and the molten, made permanent. At the material level, this work draws from the process of sand casting, in which molten bronze is poured into a compacted sand mould. Once cooled, the metal is released. In this moment, the mould becomes obsolete. It exists in anticipation, in a state of waiting. For the mould and its object, their estrangement is the very condition that allows them to be.

The mould is displayed at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, while the vessel is displayed beside a dried-up well in the courtyard of Jahili Fort in Al Ain, a historic city that was built on the desire to find water. Steeped in local memory and folklore, the well is a container for myth and magic, symbolising not only the absence of water, but of desire. A vessel that waits by a dried-up well, much like a lover at the sea’s edge, holding space for something, or someone, that may never return.