Durchdringend is an audiovisual rumination on the uncanny ways we find solace within turmoil.

The inspiration for the work comes from my personal experience of an unstable home and how I found my safe space in my father’s basement forge. In a broader sense, it offers a shared connection to the many ‘safe’ places found in the face of adversity: A home still standing amidst bushfires, another becoming an island in the floods, one willed back into existence after all was destroyed, a cupboard becoming a sheltering cave for a child when their parents are raging outside, or a bomb-shelter where the community can come together to feel protected in their home town.

Many of these spaces are not safe at all, but we will them to be. There is a belief we cling to, without it, the walls would crumble immediately. The mental barrier of the last resort and hope holds these walls together like mortar. This allows us to ignore or forgive the dangers within. 

Durchdringend is a German word meaning A force that passes through the body.