Resurrection after your ultimate collapse [Sanftes Emporringen]

Leaning forward, gaze still fixed on the floor, as though reemerging from the deep. The moment before movement, the breath between despair and ascent—this is the space of resurrection. The weight of the fall still lingers, in the way the antennas droop beside down, heavy with all they have gathered from the underworld. Yet, even in stillness, there is a pulse, a whisper of rising.

Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch.
"But where there is danger, that which saves also grows."
– Friedrich Hölderlin (Patmos)

The glaze, textured like celestial dust, recalls the impact of small meteoroids—as if we passed through fire and time, reshaped by forces unseen. The gold gleams, fragile yet unbroken, an echo of what has been shed and what remains. Orange poppies blooming, ephemeral yet defiant, their petals a testament to the beauty that survives all ruin. The turquoise ribbons, like veins of memory, remind us that ascent does not erase descent. Instead, the two are braided, inseparable, an eternal cycle of dissolution and return.

A Metaphor for the Unanswerable

To collapse is not necessarily to be lost. The underworld is not a prison but a crucible. When we fall, we think we have reached an end, yet endings are only unseen thresholds. We travel through darkness thinking we are alone, yet even the void is full of voices, murmuring the secrets of those who came before us.

What does it mean to rise after destruction? Does the self we reclaim bear the same shape as the one we lost? Or does resurrection demand a surrender, a willingness to be remade by all we have endured?

We do not rise with ease. There is no triumphant emergence, no blinding light of salvation. Instead, there is the quiet, deliberate act of lifting one’s head, of allowing the weight of what was to settle without crushing. Speaking of the earth’s patience, of the grounding force that holds us even when we forget how to stand.

Resurrection is not a return. It is the tender negotiation between what has been and what can be. It is the knowing that after collapse, we do not walk the same path—we carry the underworld within us.

Details

• moulded with clay
• body glazed dark solar metal glaze
• antlers and head items refined with gold
• mounted on a soapstone stand
• orange poppy flowers
• turquoise ribbons and tassel
• height is 40cm