The Folding Side of the Eyelid

Application summary

The Folding Side of the Eyelid is an ongoing artistic research project that investigates how faith takes shape, not as a fixed belief system, but as an emergent condition of perception. The project begins with the Buddhist iconography of Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara), whose gaze is depicted as “eight parts closed”, neither fully open nor entirely shut. This gaze embodies a subtle attentiveness: a way of seeing that neither asserts nor withdraws, but holds presence in suspension. Drawing from this image, the project explores how faith is formed in moments of perceptual ambiguity, through ritual, memory, and the slow unfolding of the not-yet-seen. Rather than treating the image as a carrier of content, I work with analog projection to shape conditions in which faith may be called. The image becomes a vessel of invocation. I am interested in how an image listens, how it opens a space for what is yet to arrive. This approach is informed by acoustic thinking, a method proposed by my tutor Snejanka Mihaylova, who describes thought not as the formation of meaning, but as an attunement to what is still unformed. While Mihaylova works through sound and language, I explore the visual counterpart. How light, image, and time create a resonance before recognition takes place. Her question, “How do we think what has not yet become language?”, guides my search for how the image might become a site of silent calling. During the residency, I will begin with perceptual observation and durational writing, using the slowness of the Finnish seasons to deepen the conceptual framework. I will experiment with projection sequences, viewer positioning, and spatial configurations using slide projectors and film transparencies. I will also develop visual-textual notebooks where projected images, writing, and sketches converge. By the end of the residency, I aim to produce a set of perceptual studies that will form the basis for future installation works or performative environments.