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Idiotheim
Id-i-ot: 1. A foolish or stupid person.
2. A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.
Heim: Suffix, German/Norwegian word meaning home or abode
“The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result”. Albert Einstein.
Conceptually I borrowed from the Norse Mythos. There are nine worlds, which compose the Norse Universe. The most well known are Asgaard (home of the Aesir gods), and Midgaard (Earth). The lesser-known worlds Hellheim (home of the dead), Alfheim, (home of the Elves) most often use the suffix noun heim meaning home.
Joseph Stalin famously said “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic”. This cynical quotation elegantly describes humanities inability to grasp the true importance of events beyond our own circle of influence. This is quite possibly our most tragic flaw as a species. It cripples our ability to mange resources for future generations, and leaves us with little empathy for humanity on the whole.
I created my own world in porcelain. The 10th world, Idiotheim. It is a world where insanity always triumphs over reason, and idiots rule. It is a world consuming itself even as it struggles to be born.
Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” was a strong influence. An incredibly detailed triptych, depicting the ruin of mankind, and its descent, and torture in hell. The painting has a surrealistic tone, which is unprecedented for the time period, but was executed with the skill of an old master. One gets the impression when viewing the painting of seeing through a looking glass into the heart of insanity
For this body of work I tried to examine the human animal as both a rational and emotionally driven being. Once again I have used animals as a representations of human physiological states.
