Stille Post (2010)
cymbal, burnt matches, stand

Stille Post is a sculpture consisting of a cymbal on its stand upon which roughly twelve boxes worth of matches have been arranged so that the match heads align with the cymbal rim. These matches have been lit and the work is displayed as the cymbal with the burnt matches upon it.

Stille Post, is a german phrase which might be translated into UK English as Silent Post or US English as Silent Mail, and is the German name for the children’s game formerly known in the UK as Chinese Whispers or in the US as Telephone.

The sense of passing a sound from one thing to its neighbour is here represented by the burning of matches. The title of the work plays with the idea that the object, having burnt out, has now been silenced. As such the work contains within itself the memory of its ‘performance’ with the burnt matches, like tiny drum sticks, having created a sound alike to the striking of a cymbal as they ignited.