✦ Who, then, is the sea

Description

Portable talisman housed in a small metal box. On the lid, a vintage photograph and a large piece of pumice stone. Inside, a fragment of an original wood engraving taken from the magazine L’Illustrazione Italiana (1891).

The embroidery inside the box depicts a stylized island surrounded by the sea. Blue and green threads trace currents and coastlines. At the center a spiral script transcribes lines from Jorge Luis Borges’s poem El mar, turning poetic language into a visual wave. Stones, fabrics, and seashells bind the piece to both physical and symbolic experience: the sea as an horizon that calls us, shipwreck as the threshold of the unthinkable, where language ends and imagination begins.

This work suggests the need to embrace the sea, which stands for our emotions. An amulet meant to accompany its keeper to a threshold, even if that threshold feels like a shipwreck. An invitation to welcome transformation, to let go, and to open to what is new.

The talisman is not wearable, but it can be kept in a pocket, a bag, or placed on a nightstand as a silent companion. A reminder that life, like the sea, always carries us beyond what we already know. Made entirely from reclaimed materials chosen for their tactile and symbolic value, it is shipped in a custom package, plastic-free and protected by natural wrappings.

Discover more works from the Tiny Mobile Territories series.

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