“I kind of believe in there being more - more, like the abstract thing. The one thing that I do know and do believe in, is that sort of power that us humans have to imbue things: to make things more than they are", Harry said.
He continued: "For example, I love how a Pokémon card or a Yu-Gi-Oh! card is literally just a piece of paper, yet, to someone, it is so much more. That piece of paper could basically save their life. Or, take food and cooking, amazing! All these raw ingredients, you make them into something completely new. I think that’s the thing I’ve been clinging on to. It’s the fact that I believe in myself in that I am going to have this change at some point, that ‘me’ a couple of years ago or last week is different and more from ‘me now’.”
As I am thinking about Harry's words, I can’t help but understand us humans as being those raw materials, atoms, matter, energy, put together and imbued, alive, inspired, and the more we learn, experience, connect… the more imbued we get.
“My believe does get bogged down frequently, because religions and organisations and logos, cultures, are all doing stuff.” I asked him: “In the sense that they are also imbued with a certain energy which can pull you down?”
"How people use that – it can even be weaponised", he explained. "Basically, we transform objects and materials – even ourselves. Everything can be a tool. Take something like a pencil, you can use it to draw, or to poke someone's eye out. Tools are the finger-tips of the holders. But I love it. Artists can make materials into meaningful things that touch people. Crazy.”
Harry’s smallest is a gilded spirelli noodle on Harry Red. Harry is a graphic designer who uses this very particular red he came up with and coined, and I tried to translate his design language into his smallest mixing Harry Red with my colours. The golden thread wrapped around represents the imbuement, the weaving-in of meaning and of there being more than just a small canvas with a noodle. Yet, it also hints at the weaponisation of imbuement – the threads can catch you, bog you down. Harry takes inspiration i.a. from unusual and mundane structures and reliefs he finds in the streets. He once posted a picture of 'last night’s noodles'… I tell you, he did imbue those noodles!
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