Text by Georgia Russell

“A child takes something apart, breaks it up in order to know it; to force its secret. The cruelty itself is motivated by something deeper; the wish to know the secret of things and life.” (Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving)

It all started on an artist residency in Paris. I would spend hours sifting through old books on the bouquiniste stalls along the Seine. These books seemed like sculptural objects which talked of their own history. They represented the many hands which had held them in the minds they had passed through.

To me the books looked lost or dead: I feel now that I have somehow resurrected them for a new life and given them new meaning. They are in a state of transition, flux, between being alive and dead, past and present. Destruction becomes construction: things die to stay alive.

In my work there is always the notion of past and passing time. Time passing is described by the intensive time-consuming cutting or manipulation of my material, the actual act or process of throwing the object into another realm of meaning. What is left is time past, non-returnable, the essence of what was.

I am interested in using old musical scores, as music transcends language and floats like liquid through the air. My music-based works represent a kind of soul which stays when time moves on.

— Georgia Russell, May 2002