The Geography of Sparks

In the seventeenth century, mapmakers often filled the empty spaces of their charts with drawings of sea monsters or swirling winds, a way of admitting that where knowledge ended, imagination had to begin. We are always trying to bridge the gaps between ourselves—the distances between one shore and another, one year and the next. We build bridges of stone and steel, yet we remain restless, forever reaching for something that burns bright enough to illuminate the dark water between us. There is a profound human impulse to mark the passage of time with fire, to throw light into the void as if to say, I am here, and you are there, and for this brief moment, the divide does not exist. We stand on the edge of our own personal continents, waiting for the sky to break open, hoping that the scattered embers might finally spell out a language we can all understand. What happens to the light once the sound has faded and the smoke drifts away into the cold, indifferent air?

Orhan Aksel has captured this fleeting connection in his work titled Inter-continental Fireworks. It is a quiet meditation on the way we try to hold onto the brilliance of a passing moment. Does the water feel any warmer for having held the reflection of such a fire?