SIM

SIM is a personal archive of eight hundred people, collected over the course of one year. Each presence is preserved in a small sealed glass ampoule, gathered by the artist during visits to participants in their everyday environments. When the body did not naturally produce sweat, it was induced through simple physical actions: running together, wearing heavy clothing indoors. The sweat was collected from the underarm using a dropper and sealed inside the ampoule, labelled with the person's name.

The ampoules are arranged on fragile glass shelves inside a small room. Their precarious balance makes them vulnerable: the presence of a visitor, even minimal movement, may cause them to fall and break. The environment is intentionally hostile: a 1000-watt halogen light heats the space, raising the temperature and producing physical discomfort. As visitors remain inside, their bodies begin to sweat, entering the same condition as the archived samples.

The room was washed daily with bleach, eliminating any perceptible human smell. Only the invisible remains.

SIM departs from the desire to collect and hold people close: to possess, in some way, what cannot be possessed. The body offers its most intimate and ephemeral trace, yet resists. Eight hundred ampoules, eight hundred names: the archive grows, and the other remains unknown.