Vessels are Never Empty
Dina González Mascaró
March 9th - April 6th, 2019
When atmospheric nitrogen is bombarded with neutrons induced by cosmic ray protons, it creates carbon-14 - a radioactive isotope that reacts with oxygen to create carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is captured through the photosynthetic activity of flora and transforms into the substrate of all living things. Hence, life is an exchange of carbon from the atmosphere to the animate. After death, the legacy of a life-once-lived is documented by the radioactive decay of carbon-140- used to date organic material as far back as fifty thousand years.[1] Six thousand years ago the Larnax, was used by Minoan and ancient Greek civilizations as a container for the remains of the deceased. Initially they were wooden chests but they evolved into ceramic vessels during the Aegean and Hellenistic periods.[2] Throughout history, rituals and mythologies around death detail our innate recognition of the cycle of carbon between the living and non-living. One of the earliest known English poems, “Erpe toc of erpe”[3], remains with us today as the religious metaphor, Dust to Dust. On some level, we know where we came from and where we will inevitably return. Through a process of personal discovery, Dina González Mascaró’s ceramic and wooden sculptures embody the natural process of carbon entering the living but formed within a mythological dialectic that engages organic process as the substrate for the most divine revelations. While the body is destined to return to the earth our gaze naturally looks upward. “Vessels are Never Empty”, reveals both our innate truths and our aspirations for the unknowable. [1] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Nuclear/cardat.html [2] Manolis Andronikos (1981). The Finds from the Royal Tombs at Vergina. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-85672-204-2. [3] /www.gutenberg.org/files/33768/33768-h/33768-h.htm |