Artwork description: The Wall of Sorts explores the invisible emotional architectures we build throughout our lives. Relationships, memories and experiences accumulate over time, forming internal structures that shape our sense of identity. Like a wall built brick by brick, these structures appear stable until one supporting element disappears, forcing the whole system to adapt.
The project investigates how we continue building when returning to the original state is no longer possible. The brick is reimagined as a vessel of memory, carrying emotional traces rather than simply serving as a unit of construction.
Cast glass became essential to expressing this idea. Its transparency and constant dialogue with light allow it to exist between presence and absence, stability and fragility. I deliberately work with recycled cast glass, embracing bubbles, inclusions and subtle imperfections as evidence of previous lives. Rather than flaws, these traces become material metaphors for memory itself - layered, incomplete and continually transformed.
Several fractured bricks are reconstructed with forged iron nails, leaving every repair visible. The dialogue between fragile glass and resilient metal reflects the tension between vulnerability and endurance, suggesting that repair does not restore what was lost but creates a new form of wholeness.
The Wall of Sorts ultimately proposes that resilience lies not in returning to what once was, but in continuing to build. Brick by brick.
Artwork description long: The Wall of Sorts explores the invisible emotional architectures we build throughout our lives. Relationships, memories, experiences and losses accumulate gradually, forming internal structures that support our sense of identity. Like a wall constructed brick by brick, these structures appear stable until one supporting element disappears. It is often only through disruption that we become aware of the fragile frameworks we carry within us. The project began as a personal reflection on loss but evolved into a broader investigation of resilience, transformation and the possibility of rebuilding. Rather than asking how we recover what has been broken, The Wall of Sorts asks a different question: how do we continue building when returning to the original state is no longer possible? The brick became the central metaphor of the work. Traditionally associated with permanence, protection and construction, it is reimagined here as a vessel of memory. Each glass brick represents a fragment of lived experience—moments, relationships and emotional traces that accumulate over time to form the structures through which we understand ourselves. Individually they appear complete, yet their meaning only emerges through their relationship with one another. Like memory itself, the wall is never fixed; it remains vulnerable to change, absence and reconstruction. Glass became essential to expressing these ideas. Its unique ability to transmit, absorb and transform light allows it to exist simultaneously between presence and disappearance. Unlike opaque materials, glass reveals its interior while never offering complete clarity. It shifts according to light, movement and the position of the viewer, making every encounter with the work slightly different. This instability mirrors the nature of memory itself—never entirely fixed, always reconstructed through time and experience. My choice to work with recycled cast glass was both conceptual and material. Rather than using flawless optical glass, I deliberately embraced a material that already carries a previous life. Bubbles, subtle colour variations, internal tensions and inclusions are often regarded as imperfections within traditional glassmaking. In this work, they become evidence of transformation. They suggest that materials, like people, possess biographies. Every imperfection records a history rather than a flaw, allowing the material itself to embody the themes of memory, change and resilience. The making process became an integral part of the research. Working with cast glass required accepting uncertainty. Variations in firing temperatures, unexpected fractures and differences in transparency continually challenged my original intentions. Instead of correcting these outcomes or producing perfect replacements, I allowed them to shape the work. Several broken bricks were reconstructed using forged iron nails, leaving every fracture visible. The repairs do not attempt to erase damage or restore an imagined perfection; they acknowledge that transformation becomes part of an object's identity. The repaired sculptures exist in a state of tension -held together, yet permanently altered. The dialogue between glass and forged iron lies at the heart of the installation. Glass embodies vulnerability, light and memory, while iron introduces weight, resistance and structural force. Together they create an unstable equilibrium between fragility and support, suggesting that strength is rarely the absence of fracture but often the ability to continue despite it. The nails do not conceal the break; they make it visible, transforming repair into an act of acceptance rather than restoration. Although rooted in personal experience, The Wall of Sorts is not intended as autobiography. It invites viewers to reflect on the invisible architectures they have built within themselves—the relationships, losses and experiences that continue to shape their lives long after circumstances have changed. In this sense, the work moves beyond the story of an individual and speaks to a shared human condition: our continual attempt to construct meaning from what remains. Ultimately, The Wall of Sorts is not about walls. It is about the act of building itself. It proposes that identity is never a finished structure but an evolving construction, shaped as much by absence as by presence. Through recycled glass, light and repair, the work suggests that neither people nor materials can return to what they once were. Instead, both carry their histories forward, revealing that resilience is not the restoration of wholeness, but the courage to keep building. Brick by brick.
Artwork description long: The Wall of Sorts explores the invisible emotional architectures we build throughout our lives. Relationships, memories, experiences and losses accumulate gradually, forming internal structures that support our sense of identity. Like a wall constructed brick by brick, these structures appear stable until one supporting element disappears. It is often only through disruption that we become aware of the fragile frameworks we carry within us. The project began as a personal reflection on loss but evolved into a broader investigation of resilience, transformation and the possibility of rebuilding. Rather than asking how we recover what has been broken, The Wall of Sorts asks a different question: how do we continue building when returning to the original state is no longer possible? The brick became the central metaphor of the work. Traditionally associated with permanence, protection and construction, it is reimagined here as a vessel of memory. Each glass brick represents a fragment of lived experience—moments, relationships and emotional traces that accumulate over time to form the structures through which we understand ourselves. Individually they appear complete, yet their meaning only emerges through their relationship with one another. Like memory itself, the wall is never fixed; it remains vulnerable to change, absence and reconstruction. Glass became essential to expressing these ideas. Its unique ability to transmit, absorb and transform light allows it to exist simultaneously between presence and disappearance. Unlike opaque materials, glass reveals its interior while never offering complete clarity. It shifts according to light, movement and the position of the viewer, making every encounter with the work slightly different. This instability mirrors the nature of memory itself—never entirely fixed, always reconstructed through time and experience. My choice to work with recycled cast glass was both conceptual and material. Rather than using flawless optical glass, I deliberately embraced a material that already carries a previous life. Bubbles, subtle colour variations, internal tensions and inclusions are often regarded as imperfections within traditional glassmaking. In this work, they become evidence of transformation. They suggest that materials, like people, possess biographies. Every imperfection records a history rather than a flaw, allowing the material itself to embody the themes of memory, change and resilience. The making process became an integral part of the research. Working with cast glass required accepting uncertainty. Variations in firing temperatures, unexpected fractures and differences in transparency continually challenged my original intentions. Instead of correcting these outcomes or producing perfect replacements, I allowed them to shape the work. Several broken bricks were reconstructed using forged iron nails, leaving every fracture visible. The repairs do not attempt to erase damage or restore an imagined perfection; they acknowledge that transformation becomes part of an object's identity. The repaired sculptures exist in a state of tension -held together, yet permanently altered. The dialogue between glass and forged iron lies at the heart of the installation. Glass embodies vulnerability, light and memory, while iron introduces weight, resistance and structural force. Together they create an unstable equilibrium between fragility and support, suggesting that strength is rarely the absence of fracture but often the ability to continue despite it. The nails do not conceal the break; they make it visible, transforming repair into an act of acceptance rather than restoration. Although rooted in personal experience, The Wall of Sorts is not intended as autobiography. It invites viewers to reflect on the invisible architectures they have built within themselves—the relationships, losses and experiences that continue to shape their lives long after circumstances have changed. In this sense, the work moves beyond the story of an individual and speaks to a shared human condition: our continual attempt to construct meaning from what remains. Ultimately, The Wall of Sorts is not about walls. It is about the act of building itself. It proposes that identity is never a finished structure but an evolving construction, shaped as much by absence as by presence. Through recycled glass, light and repair, the work suggests that neither people nor materials can return to what they once were. Instead, both carry their histories forward, revealing that resilience is not the restoration of wholeness, but the courage to keep building. Brick by brick.