OUSIA: noun, 1. true being, entity, essence, substance; 

[borrowed from Ancient Greek οὐσία (ousía)].

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The exhibition and publication constituting OUSIA identify with a visual and etymological dissection of the omniscient concept of 'decay'.

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Borrowing elements from geological and natural worlds, both the publication and the exhibition explore the meanders of the interaction of an object, late sensu, with the active agents constituting its context. OUSIA aims to suggest a new alphabet to re-imagine decay as means to look at the future while shaping the present. 

 

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The analysis of the theme to be found within the everyday surrounding is paced by a consistent sequence of an apparently uncoordinated showcase of geologic subjects. The crypticness of the collection, however, is an active participant of the investigation. The publication, in fact, relies, on one hand, on the strength of its framing device as a means to redirect the reader to an hybrid editorial, which fluidly switches between a catalogue and a glossary, while, on the other one, bringing forward a showcase of the emblem of decay itself.

In fact, Basalt, namely volcanic rocks, main subjects of portray and analysis in both  the printed and the physical adaptations of OUSIA, becomes crucial to depict the project's component of transversality, namely decay. Dependent on eruptions, the landscape, as well as the individual rocks constituting it, lives in a perennial metamorphic state. The volcanic land is young and unstable, its constant destruction is symbol of rebirth.

The future state becomes a moving target, the land is always changing into what it will be. Basalt is therefore an action, never an object, a verb, never a noun. This transversal visual essay is based on a intertextual speculation in which its meta-textual subject, basalt, becomes a vessel to write a wordless poem that utilises non-linguistic discourse and non-discursive language to portray decay.

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The absence of narrative is a wager against the perpetual risk of misdirection, failure, misunderstanding, of never reaching the right recipient. As a mssive sent to a potential future, OUSIA might actually become the conjunction point between agent and subject, decay and the individual, creating the necessary conditions for the emergence of a public that could recognise itself in the work.

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OUSIA is an antidote to the hypertechnified present, a phenomenological inquiry on the awareness of the (non-)limits of context when experiencing.

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