The subject has sprouted during a conversation with a technical director at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, while designing a scenography for an educational project. It was when visiting their storage facilities that my initial questions arose, such as who cleans the dust off the artworks and surfaces, and what is this dust composed of.
This text follows my research on the Semipalatinsk nuclear disaster and the lingering effects of the Soviet regime led to explore the topic of dust and its significance in the context of environmental and political devastation. Inspired by the philosopher Michael Marder's experiences with the Chernobyl disaster, I delved into the symbolic and material aspects of dust as a metaphor for the enduring consequences of human actions.
This texts acts as a reminder that the audience, who spends the most time in front of an artwork, are those who take care of them, those who install them, those who preserve them and watch them for entire days. Like dust, we are aware of their presence when we physically experience the exhibition space.
The publication is inspired by a publishing house that aimed to make books accessible to those who are forced to take public transport during rush hour. So the horizontal format and the imposing font made it possible to scroll through the book with one hand, and facilitate reading during the journey.
The font I used for the titles is called SAINT and was designed by Liza Dushnota, and it is a hybrid font between the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets allowing variations in the letters. It echoes my art practice: I am interested in the traces of the Soviet Union, particularly the Cyrillic alphabet imposed from 1938 to 1989 in Moldova who spoke Romanian and wrote in Latin. I have a fascination for people who still use this transliteration system, or who unconsciously leave traces of it in their handwriting.
The title of my thesis is a small nod to popular culture. Silverfish is a small insect in Minecraft that appears when blocks of stone are destroyed, to evoke the presence of dust. It's a playful little detail that I find interesting, to evoke dust in the virtual realm.
