Reconfiguring motions

Departing from matter and body correlations, the body of work titled Reconfiguring motions expands Toumpouris’ studio practice to include the land and the landscape. It refers to various aspects of embodiment in which cognition, emotionality and making become response tools to explore land, movement and light.

The video, from which this body of work takes its title, is the result of an 8-month filming process in the Cypriot landscape. The voice over occurred through editing transcribed audio recordings of verbal reflections that were produced whilst in the landscape. Drawing from the pace of the land and multiple bodies, the soundscape is based on a bank of sounds that were generated through a selection of glyphs that refer to fictionality in linguistics.

In To maintain patency #1 and #2, fossils, ores and rocks as well as gestures associated with Toumpouris’ embodied experience in working with clay leave their trace on the glass pieces attached on balancing metal structures.

The terracotta wall piece titled For a breath in between includes grinded ores collected from the encountered landscapes and calcium bentonite clay. It depicts vocal cords at an open state during inhalation, perhaps between the pronunciation of sounds, letters or words.