Palatine Burial is a grotto of densely massed barbed
wire shards with individual links configured to grasp and puncture
adjacent surfaces.
Palatine Burial is a fabric ‘soil’, a spreading geotextile
reinforcing the soil and fostering new growth. Palatine Burial responded
to a recent excavation in Rome in which traces were found of a baby
that was sacrificed and buried beneath the ancient fortifications
of the city. The project involved construction of a textile cover
used for reburial of the archeological site.
The sacrifice was for propitiation, protecting the boundary of
the city. Making sacred. A mundus, a little world offered in stead
of the world around. Beneath the wall at the edge of the city, a
pit was dug into the volcanic mud-stone tufa, fitted to the clay
dolium vessel enclosing the tiny body. Sifted linings filled in
the spaces closing the void between the vessel and the stone. Tiny
fragments of the burial remained: a brooch; a tooth. Laid bare.
What material could be adequate for covering there?
Each link of the fabric net received special details. Inside was
an anatomy of transparent vessels cushioned by sprung tenons and
terminated by serrated hollow needles to puncture and drain. Toward
the outside, angled crampons bent back for springing and grasping
set up with hair-trigger antennae. Around, a spread of open joints
with outflung guides to catch and link with neighbours.
Each of these protozoan links was thin and meager, but by linking
and clumping together they made mass and thickness. At first a bare
latticework controlled by the geometry of its elements then increasingly
formless and growing darker as it ingested decomposing matter. Thicker,
and fertile, enveloping the wire implants and making a complete
turf. This cover was finally dense, redolent with growth. And within
that vital new earth, a convulsion glimmered-a poise telegraphing
through from the sprung armature deep within.
