Troost
(consolation)

Invited by Arte Libera from Geneva I made work for an exposition about Childhood protection. It brought me immediately to childhood abuse. It has millions of faces, and that makes it so unbearable.

My work concentrates on consolation that a child bears within him. Consolation makes you strong, resistant! I have gathered comforting voices, and dear little objects. The voices are of men and women talking or singing to a child in a moment of pain or grief. The words are in many languages, but one can follow them all; the melody of the voice is enough to know what’s all about.

With time these voices become a memory, inner voices. In moments of threat or anxiety one can hear them from within, feel a caring presence. A child remembers the existence of another, better reality.

The objects I gathered are quite a trivial part of a child’s daily routine rituals, like having your hair combed (by your mother), playing, washing…I made a bunch of necklaces with these objects, capturing those trivial realities in them.

The usually insignificant bits and pieces become a source of consolation at more difficult moments. They become relics.