a gleaming like ivory...

a gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust is a fragment taken from a prose piece by David Wojnarowicz. It speaks of witnessing the process of bodily decay, the slow unravelling and disintegration of matter that has become unanimated, deprived of life. This piece is formally inspired by the image Wojnarowicz evokes: it is one of collapse, but also one of the slow encroachment and dismantling of optimism, a glacial disassembling of hope. Despite the finality implicit in Wojnarowicz’s words I approach the structure of collapse in this piece as a cyclical happening, evergreen. While everything rises and then falls, if only to rise again, it also revolves and spirals, spinning iterations outward. a gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust was co-commissioned by Wigmore Hall (with the generous support of the Marchus Trust and the Wigmore Hall Endowment Fund) and Ensemble intercontemporain.

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