Continuum Shell

Eden Wilson
Master of Architecture | University of Newcastle

“To belong requires a connection that goes beyond existing or occupying space.

Country offers a place in which we can always connect, learn, relate, belong.”

MATERIALS: rock 

Artist Statement

Belonging is force of connection. To belong to a home... community... family... a region. It all requires a connection that goes beyond existing or occupying those places.

The feeling of belonging arises from a trust, a knowledge that you will be safe and cared for and an expectation that you will reciprocate those same aspects. To care for your home or your family is to sustain oneself. The same is true for Country.

Belonging informs our identity, it is the basis for which we understand the world. The modern world has largely forgotten the connection to culture, tradition, vernacular and nature. There are a lot of people who feel they don’t belong anywhere and don’t know who they should be.

Country offers a place in which we can always connect, always learn, always relate, always belong.

Synopsis 

For this Living Belonging I wanted to weave together the aspects of my life that make my home using Country as a guiding practice.Through storytelling, dialogue and learning the object becomes a Living Belonging and not just a stone. It is an artefact of my learning and my home.

My Dad is a stone and wood carver. His carvings are scattered throughout the house, often depicting the landscape of our region. I wanted to take this aspect of home and how to carve from my father.The shell form arrives from my lifetime near the coast. The natural curiosity that it brings out of me, to explore, experience, investigate. It tells the stories of collecting shells with my partner, camping near the beach, learning to swim and long days spent in a place so different to our urban landscape.

During the process of making this object I was feeling lost, my head overloaded and my identity in question. I decided to slow down and take some time to look for answers in Country.

I found shells that were eroded through, revealing an internal structure that is completely continuous with the external structure. I decided to use this form to represent the continuum of Country. The ongoing story of past, present and future, ancestor and descendant and the obligation we all have to care for Country just as it has cared for us in the past and will continue to in the future.

The Living Belonging contains the knowledge my Dad passed down to me. It contains, embedded in it skin, the mistakes, the lessons and the effort.

It contains the stories of my life and my home... If you put your ear to it, you might just hear them.