with a glad heart
lena henke, michele gabriele, tom volkaert, sasha zirulnik
november , 2021
Time mostly moves quickly, but sometimes it crawls. In an elastic instant it is now almost 2022, and darkZone persists…for now. My parents have finally begun to move to their new house, taking with them the oxygen that sustained darkZone’s flame. While its light has begun to dim, it has not burned out.
Preparing for its next life, this tomb has started evacuating its inhabitants. Artifacts from a complicated family history form a procession up the dark grey basement stairs. For many, this is their first glimpse of the world above in decades. One by one they are excavated, leaving only their ephemeral dregs behind. The emptiness provides clarity and networks of rodent waste and byproduct are exposed. Piles of mammalian fur, bedding, and literal shit have been piling up in secrecy over years as the small creatures worked quietly and persistently in the background. For generations upon generations, they were busy erecting their monument of micro-mimicry, now unveiled in the dawn of the final act of darkZone.