The multimedia project The Inceptive Ground, texture volume 01, sets out to unlearn the constructed knowledge of place, moving beyond geographical labels, historical narratives, and cartographic boundaries to ask: how might one approach a landscape without calling it by name? The work explores perception through a lens of estrangement, an encounter that is raw, slow, and unmediated. A way of seeing that resists definition. That begins before language.

Inspired by a question posed by psychologist James J. Gibson, “When does perception end and memory begin?”, the project asks instead: “When does memory end, and when does perception begin?” The inversion reframes perception as something that could precede memory, a way of seeing untouched by association.

To enter a seemingly endless terrain, a solitary bicycle journey unfolded over 119 days along the 70th western meridian in the southern hemisphere, from the driest deserts in the north, through volcanoes, lofty mountain regions, vast open plains, and surreal mirages in between, all the way to the eternal ice in the south. The journey was undertaken with a tent, a sleeping bag, and a small analog camera with twelve black-and-white films.

The extreme slowness of movement, exposed to wind, dust, and long silences, allowed the surface of the ground, its textures, weight, and physical impact to be observed and absorbed. Over time, the horizon ceased to be a distant edge and began to move with the body, shaping each step, each breath, each quiet shift in direction.

Along the way, wide segments of ground structure were documented. Through visual abstraction, these observations took shape in analog photography, sculpture, and large-format hand drawings built up over years with countless ink dots. The works move toward a visual language that is subtle, barely visible, and incomplete, echoing a sense of perception that evades clarity and resists being fully grasped. These gestures open a space where memory, perception, body, and matter begin to dissolve into one another. Somewhere between erosion and emergence, a form of presence begins to unfold, shaped through experience, rhythm, and material encounter.