Olin ‘t Hart

Value is often based on productivity and economic worth. This capitalist system leaves much and many unmeasured. There’s a need for slower, smaller economies, slower and smaller life. I revel in the unproductive, the undecided, the missing. This is the negative space, it’s the around.

An artistic practice can be used to practice something. Like looking at the world a certain way, paying attention, noticing. Seeing the way we value things and what that does to how we treat them. (When valued, with care.) Attention shapes the way you see the world, the way you move in it, what you make of it. Like wishing, practicing wishing, a rejection of apathy.

My practice focuses on palm-sized objects, made of leftover materials. The object is sometimes a placeholder, sometimes a recipient of my attitude. I hold love for objects, the reminder, the remainder.

Care greater than desperation is what we need to foster, stubbornly! This is a wish, a wish as a direction, a horizon. 

(but) I’m waiting. Waiting to use the wish, for the perfect timing and the perfect words. Waiting for things to fall into place and waiting for the world to make sense, for me to be ready.

(but) while I’m waiting I’m looking at the trees, at my hands, at the around. Then I remember: everything big is made up of small things.