SUBSTITUTION, OMISSION, DISTORTION, ADDITION ​

​

The drawings in this group are of a shell layered by marks left by other inhabiting creatures following the death of the mussel it first belonged to, the trunk of a dead date palm tree, and a termite infested part of the same tree. Common to these objects are their deep crevices, indicated by the darkest lines in drawing. After a tree has died, its crevices are the site of growth or a possible habitat; the crevice is a hollow that is inevitably filled, or a scar; what is left of the wound after it has healed. It creates new conditions for continuity, drawing sustenance from beyond its initial source and physical contours.

The title ‘Substitution, Omission, Distortion, Addition,’ is borrowed from the terms used to describe four types of articulation or phonological errors made by a child. They seemed an appropriate description of what the process entails, through the practice of attempting to first understand and then articulate the measure of death in organic, ecological terms.