There is No Such Thing As the End is an ongoing collaboration project between Alexandra Eldridge and Predrag Pajdic which started as a contemplation on death that soon became a celebration of life.
About 20 Victorian glass plate negatives were found in the attic of a stately home in Houston, TX. They revealed images of astonishing beauty and were filled with haunting charm and mystery. The negatives were then printed on antique Chinese scrolls, chosen for their fragility and suggestion of impermanence. As the nature of the scroll was sacred, it was meant to be brought out from time to time with ceremony and anticipation. The viewing of a scroll for the first time is like a revelation.
The project began in January 2011. While at the British Museum the artists attended the exhibition Ancient Egypt: The Book of the Dead. This was largely a series of spells painted on papyrus that helped to carry the Soul into the next world after death.
Here the idea was born to print the images of these newly revealed children on old scrolls and re-imagine them through a palimpsest of painting, printing, collage and drawing. They would serve as carriers of messages from another time and realm. To have the subtle become manifest… to illuminate the Inbetween worlds.
The artists began the work not long after in Santa Fe, NM in March of 2011. They became deeply engaged in urging out the essence of each child, bringing them into life through our imaginations. Because the plates were given to the artists by a friend who died shortly thereafter, they found this to be a poignant process bridging life and death. Perhaps a way to connect to the other realms, the spheres of the unknown.
In September, Alexandra and Predrag met again in Ljubljana, Slovenia to continue the process of re-animation of the unknown children. Thirteen scrolls were then exhibited as part of an International Arts Festival, The City of Women. They were presented as an installation in a room with 16th c. music, burning candles and incense and a giant chandelier draped with reptiles and insects, echoing the inhabitants of the scrolls that accompany the children. “Animal Forms of Wisdom”, orbs of psychic energy, snakes and dragonflies exist with each child as “familiars. “
The process continued in November of 2011, when an artist friend offered them a group of glass negatives from the same time period, 1900. These originated in a portrait studio in Albuquerque, NM from an orphanage, largely Native American. The magic of this collaborative journey was enhanced by a visit to the Feast Day dances at Jemez Pueblo, NM. The ceremonial, sacred nature of this event reminded the artists of the need for amulets, charms and votive offerings for the celebration of life. The images were adorned with sterling silver, crystals, feathers, flowers, taxidermy, precious stones and found and gifted objects. A selection of the latest pieces will be shown the international exhibition The Oracle taking place at WE*DO Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand from the 5th January 2012.
