Pickled Tense

The work follows a slow progression of time, like watching a shadow sluggishly creep across the ground. We observe a faint but perceivable trickle of salt falling from a small hole in the ceiling. The action is modest and any immediate effect is difficult to gauge. The change evolves at a similar tempo to the empty pit, which in time develops into a thirty-story tower. It explores a rhythm that is of course present all around us, but one that is often situated in the back of mind in the instantaneous nature of our contemporary culture. We participate in witnessing a moment, a brief period that rests upon the accumulated actions that have come before, a point in time that will itself recede beneath the perpetual descent from above. It is a very nominal and incremental act but its relentless and incessant nature results in a ceaselessly mounting form, its increasing prominence steadily bleeding out across the floor, eventually pressing up against the walls of the space itself.

REVIEW:

“Robert Hengeveld: Natural Revision, Picked Tense”, by Murray Whyte, The Toronto Star, April 15, 2011 (Download PDF)