RIISE

2024

installation
raw clay, glass, water

Riise is a sculptural installation that transforms the agricultural landscape of Rovasenda - the municipality that commissioned the work - into a dynamic miniature ecosystem. Through the careful extraction and manipulation of native clay from local rice paddies, the artwork creates a dialectic between natural materials, agricultural practice, and living systems. The installation consists of two primary elements: the core is made of hand-formed clay cubes, each crafted from clay extracted from different rice paddies across Rovasenda's territory, then manipulated and polished by hand. The base is a glass foundation containing a shallow water layer, which serves both as a display platform and an active component of the piece.



The work operates on multiple levels of meaning, from a geographical mapping system, where each clay form represents a specific location within Rovasenda's agricultural landscape to a meditation on the relationship between human agricultural practices and natural systems, becoming a living sculpture that evolves over time through its interaction with environmental factors. The combination of water, clay, and exposure to open air creates conditions that foster the development of a micro ecosystem, allow for natural processes of change and degradation and mirror the ecological dynamics of actual rice fields on a miniature scale. Riise invites viewers to contemplate the complex relationships between human cultivation practices, natural materials, and living systems while offering a poetic interpretation of agricultural space.