Reflective Encounters

“In Greek mythology, Pandora was created by the blacksmith god Hephaestus himself, while her fashioning was overseen by the almighty Zeus. As the first woman, her allegiance knew no counterparts but her makers, until that very special moment, when she decided to act spontaneously, of her own accord. Matthias Lerch repurposes the above myth by bringing the mechanical side of production to the fore, which already gestures towards the political and economic implications of mythology.

His Pandora is a doll, a product of technological assemblage and alchemy, born out of a film projector and hundreds of gears, screws, and some organic bits. She is beautiful, exquisitely crafted by what is decisively not a human hand, and yet her beauty retains something inherently human – her desire to break away from her predestination. A blessing or a curse, praised in epics, poems, and novels, this strive towards independence is captured by Lerch with the methodological precision of a mechanic, and then retold with the spellbinding articulation of a poet.”

— Savina Petkova