23.5" x 163" x 163" (12 units, 20" x 23.5" x 23.5" each), terracotta with crushed Chicago common brick and 23K gold leaf.
Murmuration is an interactive installation of 12 individually hand-built ceramic pods, each approximately 2 feet in diameter and 20 inches in height. Each unit is made from terra cotta with the inclusion of hand-crushed Chicago common brick (reclaimed from the artist’s neighborhood), sanded down to a satiny finish and gilded on the interior with 23-karat gold leaf. A semi-circular opening has been cut at the base of each pod as an invitation for exhibition visitors to lay down and rest their heads inside the spaces created.
The coming together of the materials of terra cotta and gold reflect the values applied to these materials by society. Terra cotta and common brick, earthy and mundane; gold, arcane. Commonality and rarity fused together. Not unlike being human—experiencing flesh that fails over time, while carrying a sense of something greater inside, something gilded and precious. Inviting the visitor in to experience their own senses inside a pod creates space—sacred space—in which the visitor may awaken to this sense of something greater.
The simplicity of form and the sparse use of materials evoke ancient architectural forms, while the use of the catenary curve is reminiscent of both Gothic cathedrals and the egg. As these ovum-like forms emerge from the ground, the myth of the phoenix bird rising from the ash is invoked, while the gilding reinforces a reliquary sense of reverence. Once inside a pod, a visitor will cautiously, curiously speak—the reverberating sound of their own voice in the contained space creating a sense of wonder, of awe. To an outside witness, it sounds like a murmur. To the individual inside it sounds like a voice in a cathedral. What appear to be miniature clay huts become houses of the holy, sanctified by the voices resounding inside them. Without these voices, they are simply gilded forms.