OBLIVION: ETERNITY SMELLS LIKE PETROLEUM (2025)

Installation | Bitumen, bricks, photographs

The phrase 'Eternity smells like petroleum' — a motif steeped in various philosophical and cultural histories — serves as the conceptual anchor for the installation OBLIVION. In an ever-shifting world where the physical remnants of the past are being displaced by digital data we face a paradox: our attempts to preserve the past ultimately prove futile against the tide of time. The eternity we strive to grasp is reduced to something mundane, alienated and cold.

In this installation bitumen acts as a symbol of this eternity. It is a contradiction: a preservative that appears to trap the remnants of the past, and a void that slowly dissolves what was once a living breathing documentation of reality. This metamorphosis mocks our efforts to sustain memory and highlights our helplessness before the relentless movement of time.

Each block reveals the verso of a photograph, once signed and gifted as a token of friendship. These fragments of words, desperately protruding from the dark bitumen mass, are the final gasps of an individual history. They symbolize memory’s inevitable struggle for survival — an attempt to pierce the veil of oblivion. The installation questions the unshakable truth of the photographic archive exposing its vulnerability. It asks the viewer: What do we choose to save? How long will our memories live in a world turning to digital dust — a world where even eternity has a distinct pungent scent?