An installation of thousands of tiny, uniquely-shaped abstract ceramic objects made by Deiniol Williams on designs I’ve drawn, the total number matching the number of words/characters in a particular dictionary, e.g. Johnson’s Dictionary, or the 100BCE 尔雅 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erya) - the oldest Chinese character list (4,300 words). Learning Chinese as a beginner prompted me to consider the awe of encountering a new logography.

This work is about the obscured or hidden (from us) significance of words in other languages to our own, and the striving to discern meaning nonetheless. The visual impact of the large number of objects displayed will evoke the scale of collective endeavour that leads to the evolution of languages, but also the quixotic nature of verbal communication amid an eternally mysterious existence.