Visitation Zone, Chapter III

‍June 2021

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In Visitation Zone, Chapter III, Edith Dekyndt used emptied vivariums and aquariums from Riga Zoo. 

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These glass containers are now being exhibited in the historic barns of Le Marais, layed where wheat was once stored for the community. Emptied, they leave visible the marks from the animals that once occupied them.

These transparent surfaces, glass or plexiglas structures, are the witness of an ancient life. They suggest, in negative, through the accumulation of stains, dust and dirt, scratches and cracks, a bygone occupancy.

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This occupancy, almost brought back to life, does not seem assigned to any specific space or time, such as the videos that complete the installation. One of them was filmed during an  erratic trip to the Baltic coast and the other shows a retained fall in an indescribable place.

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Dekyndt builds a triptyque : videos and vivariums are completed by a third element, what is left of a large piece of cloth, which was buried under a field of Le Marais. Hanged vertically, it lies as a relic of past time. 

These diverse mediums are only a few of the means that the artist uses to save something from a lost situation. 

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Through a wide range of techniques, Dekyndt’s works are the vessels of temporary phenomenon, evolving with their specific circumstances, whether they are linked to sensitive or usage phenomenon, historical or social facts. In subtle variations, they engage us, through their material testimony and the concepts they raise, in a perpetual process. Even in the impure or the lost, the transformative act that animate each of Edith’s work is also the promise of an infinite continuation. It thus becomes an allegory of life, where each being withers and dies, before being replaced.

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