III: Bodies of Dust

The metaphor of the human body as dust, clay, or sand, with all its biblical connotations, is as ancient as our cultural consciousness. Nevertheless, it appears that this physical sense of belonging together with all matter on Earth must be updated. We feel the need to redefine it, utilising shared experiences to transform societal perceptions of the human body and the influences inscribed in everything it receives and absorbs – elements that crystallise, metamorphose, and become synthetic parts of the body. The spectrum of colour found in ceramic clay parallels the range of colours of human skin and internal organs. While the clay is wet, it has a malleable, almost fluid form. If it is mishandled or subjected to rapid temperature; it cracks, without moisture, it becomes brittle and disintegrates into dust. Just like our vulnerable bodies, it is directly dependent on the proportion of chemical elements and water content. Just like our disintegrating and regenerating bodies, it is part of all earthly and cosmic matter. Thanks to airstreams, we sometimes inhale air from the Sahara as well as stardust. Stardust, after all, can be understood as a pervasive, magical element that, according to the hypothesis known as panspermia, may have brought life to our planet in the form of microorganisms wandering through the galaxy in the form of solid microparticles.