SALTATIO

Dimensions: 15.5 x 15.5 x 3.7 cm

Date assembled & painted: 2025

Details: This 17th century Oak frame was once part of a porch timber, with a possible witch mark graffitied onto it to ward off evil and bad luck. It now holds a fragment of 16th century Raeren stoneware depicting the peasants or paupers dance. This motif, echoed in paintings of that time, speaks to a shifting social order: celebration as resistance, and festivity as rupture.

Behind the ceramic a faded 17th century script murmurs like a forgotten sermon or ledger - its presence both archival and poetic. The carved graffiti on the oak frame adds a layer of lived touch as if the wood itself remembers the hands that carved and shaped it. The work is a ritual convergence: body vessel and voice it asks what joy meant in a time of upheaval and how dance became both escape and declaration.