Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier

Borderless

Carved Portland Stone

The artwork takes its form from the artists photographic and filmic studies of the surface of water, the play of light and shade in constant transformation. image that brought two disparate bodies of water together to create an imaginary ‘waterscape’. The piece presents as a kind of mirage, shimmering in the surface of the building. Created from horizontal carved traces and rivulets that stretch across the stone canvas, disappearing into its natural surface, the mark making references glacial striations, the mobile surface of water and the ethereal quality of light on water. The carving language sits between the human touch of hand carved stone and the elemental language of the natural erosion of stone by water.

The human body consists of up to 60% water. Water traverses the landscape of the human anatomy just as it is in a continuous circulatory cycle on earth. The form of water is in a state of permanent transformation and flux: One droplet of water in London can condense, become cloud and fall as rain in Paris. From there it might travel via the Seine into tributaries, down through Europe into the Mediterranean Sea and out to the vast Atlantic Ocean. Water traverses the earth with no heed for borders. It reminds us of the borderless ethos of the Hippocratic oath where knowledge of healing is to be shared and spread across the earth.