Collecting Time (2023) is a minimalistic vitrine installation that aims to reorient our collective relationship with time, rhythm, and progress by raising awareness of a slower yet steadier pace as a form of collective care.
In a world where faith in progress has become a necessity, the speed at which it unfolds is often regarded as a measure of success. Time has become twice as precious, while slowness is perceived as counterproductive. The rhythm of urban life often jumps back and forth between fast and slow, open and closed, in motion and paused, demanding constant resilience from its citizens and shaping their lives and well-being. By contrast, the cycles of nature embody a much slower and steadier pace.
The snail, one of nature’s many performers embodying this slow yet steady rhythm, takes centre stage in the vitrine installation. A black-and-white photographic image of a crawling snail, framed and floating within the vitrine, has the size of an average modern television screen. Together with the empty snail shells attached inside and around the vitrine, the image creates the optical illusion of anticipated movement, while two neon lights draw on the aesthetics of advertising to promote the words ‘slowly’ and ‘steadily’. A life-size photographic reproduction of the animal, in the form of vinyl stickers, spread throughout the urban landscape within a one-kilometre radius of the vitrine, echoing the animal’s invasive nature.
