Magdalena Gerber — Hécate

The chaotic dust of the universe is thought to have condensed due to collisions generating fusions and so to have formed the first stars, the Earth, the Moon and the other planets. The two spheres of the Earth-Moon couple waltz in space in a regular heliocentric pattern. The gravity point of this duo is within the Earth but off-centre, causing the oval trajectory.

By turns fully lit and then once more in total darkness, the Moon has always been a source of projection, creating a poetic and mythological space. Through its monthly apparition and disappearance, going so far as to suggest the possible existence of "black moons" tracing the shadow of the real Moon on its orbital path, a fictional space permits the wildest of narratives. In Greek mythology, for example, the Moon’s changing phases are attributed to the protective goddess Hecate, associated with wealth and fertility as well as with death.

This piece aims to fuse the real and the imaginary by the material presence of thirteen convex discs in polished black stoneware, mounted on the wall or placed on the floor in an oval arrangement, as if they were fragments of black moon spheres.

Thanks to the HEAD-Geneva for the use of its facilities.

MAHN - Exhibition Melting Pot