Ears and Years
The journey is exquisite, demanding, and elegant. The more you live, the less you exist—and the less you hear.
You are born listening to everything because, at first, there is nothing yet to hear from within. Your body is compact and portable in your mother’s arms. The emptiness inside makes you loud and extravagant, hoping for someone to fill the space.
Years ahead, it becomes your parents’ task to decide what you should listen to. There is no self-awareness yet, but it is about to emerge. Your height is still below your mother’s waist.
Later, you are free solo—perceiving, confusedly and slowly, that your parents are only a fraction of the existing sounds. You begin to notice the hubbub within yourself. Unable to digest it all, you get loud again—this time, rebellious too. You are almost as tall as your parents now, so you think you can speak to them face to face.
Further along the expedition, you grow tired of trying to align your inner uproar with the outside world. Then, an astonishing and comforting space reveals itself: silence. At the edge of your body, the doorman—Ear—filters the entry, allowing you to experience quiet joy within. In silence, there is no reasoning, just balance in the vacuum—until a deeper layer comes to light. You are no longer growing taller, but your parents seem to be getting smaller. Now that you are quiet, you can receive someone loud and extravagant.
The last stop: a sailing experience, where you welcome the feeling of being adrift. The waves swing your body, and you enjoy the dance—the sound that now comes from within. It is the predominant noise, harmonizing perfectly with the softness and wetness of the surface.
Since the day it all began, your ears have grown larger and longer, better equipped to receive sounds that come to visit. And yet, you are deafer than ever—your hearing has deep-dived into the self, drifting far from the doorman. At this point, your entire body mimics the shape of an ear. Hearing knows you are prepared for silence, so it goes ahead in search of a new quiet place where you might live next.
This project explores the relationship between sound and silence throughout life, expressed through textile art—spinning, felting, tapestry, and biomaterials—as well as poetry. My affinity and fascination with ears go back a long way. I aim to create an exhibition where visitors can rethink the physical and emotional roles of ears.
"I can't be in silence" is an invitation for the audience to reflect on the kind of dialogue they are willing to engage in and where the boundaries lie—how much of the outside world should dictate what we think. The exchange between the inner and outer worlds is necessary, but as an exhausting and never-ending process, it leaves little room for one simply to be.
technique: felting, crochet, knitting
