Berlin 2105
Just looking around, I can see how many wonderful objects surround me, and how much attention someone had put into fabricating them. I have collected small ornaments from places I had visited. Even the most simple wood box, which stands here by my table, has an amazing story to tell in terms of technology. I can feel with my hands the fine finishing of the wood, together with a delicate metal fusion and an ingenious way of opening up from the sides and from above, suggesting the idea of an obscure wooden chamber. Like an old hidden coffer. Then, for a second, I think how many things we take for granted today. I take a few steps back and think about what technology really means.
What could be simpler than a wood spoon. Although this common ground of simplicity is just an indicator that this amazing resource has been totally absorbed by our technological eye, suddenly surprises me as the most grandiose achievement of human kind, in which I find a way to experience an ancient discovery - hacking a wood log into a spoon. The wood spoon is so interesting in its cultural and philosophical aspect. It’s a common ground in all the cultures that had lived on earth. It’s hard to think of any civilization that didn’t have a wood spoon legacy. Wood used to be the basic resource for developing any kind of technology, and basically eating or preparing the food which is something totally basic. But it doesn’t stop right there. Many cultures had absorbed this object to express all kinds of forms and mes- sages. Even though we have an idea what a spoon is, this not a simple object at all and can be reconstructed in so many extended ways and still be recognizable.
So day by day, connecting myself with the act of spoon making, I discover this meditative sensation, a feeling of labor and creation. The more I speak with people around me, the more I realize how the concept of making a spoon is received with empathy and with a poetic joy. Than as natural as it can be, a good friend of mine with a unsual and edgy profession - he is a conflict photographer - came one day to my studio to make a self carved wood spoon.
It was magical. Our connection became a meta universe. As we were there together, concentrating on our movements and dialoging with the wood, we kept in silence, and araised into a conscious state of being. In this moment I started to think how the state of my mind will reflect the form of the spoon. As if the spoon absolved the intention and the content of the creators mind. In this dance, we feel light and let go. After this day, I thought that my social sculpture had just started. I could now invite people to my studio to enjoy the self- carving of wood spoons and raise the question one more time, “What does it mean to make a spoon nowadays?”