memory eternal vechnaya pamyat by Lauren H-B from usa

The Soap Factory, a thriving project space gallery in the St. Anthony neighborhood of Minneapolis, MN, provides a fitting textural and contextual space in which to carry out this concept. The vacuous nature of the building, brick and concrete warehouse aesthetic, and evenly spaced wood plinths dictates the rhythm and order of objects within the space.

Porcelain is my clay of choice for its strength and fragility, white appearance, and translucency. Taking cracked and broken handmade porcelain objects, I layer each piece in a repetitive manner and break it by hammering, throwing, walking upon and pushing it into circular forms. This performative act creates a mess of pile-ups and tiny mountains out of the broken debris. The physicality of the material is a metaphor for the human condition. In their brokenness, they are beautiful.

Memory Eternal (Vechnaya Pamyat) is an Eastern Orthodox chant meant to be sung repeatedly at funerals, memorial services, and
the anniversary of the death of a loved one. The installation reflects similar cyclical rhythms and rituals found in the religious culture in which I was raised. Grief is processed through repetition. Movement throughout the gallery becomes a procession, a paying of respects to cycles, to endings and beginnings, as a result of the arrangement of porcelain and light.