Sea and Earth, 2024

Bronze Sculpture

"The concept started with using a seashell from my collection of seashells. In Alexandria by the sea near Qiatbay citadel, built by the Mamelukes, there is an aquarium as well as yacht clubs, and sellers of seashells and other sea products.

I was told that the big seashell was fished out from the Mediterranean and the inside of the seashell was fried, cooked and eaten by the sailor – whether a lie or the truth, it doesn’t matter. A mythical image – a story heard from the sea, a face created with wax to complete the missing snail. The body became a tree branch multiplied as a skirt. The concept of uniting the sea and earth – that are major elements that we deal with daily – if our sea, gets threatened or our trees die, there may not be much life – the sea cleans the air; so does the tree, it cleans our universe.

These metaphysical as well as a physical characters are supposed to be of average height but different from normal human body, in size and looks – they have no hands and no feet, their feet are branches, if and when moved make sounds, the sounds maybe according to the movement.

When the wax figure & the wooden branches were cast into bronze, they have a shinier look, more a situation where the body has become immortalised by bronze, shining as well as muted.

Bronze goes back to Bronze Age, to the times when humans had a survival which defines our survival instincts – here self-centred, and self-interested – working and living collectively.

The small shelled character, is a companion to the bigger sea shell character, both have the same story. Land & Sea – the elements of nature, Air, fire, ether –

Wood is used to burn as well as build – branches of trees; trees feed, give out fruits, depending what tree and which fruit. The sea shell can give a snail, or it can give our jewels, sea sounds that when listened too, give the secret of the sea. These two objects had a swing between them that was cancelled for sake of security. It was meant to be the pendulum of time – the free movement of the object."

Anna Boghiguian

Sea shells and tree branches cast in bronze
2 sculptures, approx. 160 x 100 x 100 cm each
Edition of 3 + 2 AP

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Anna Boghiguian

**The Sunken Boat: A Glimpse into Past Histories, 2025**

**The Square, the Line and the Ruler, 2020**

**A Short Long History, S.M.A.K., 2020**

**Conversation with Clarice Lispector around ‘The Passion According to G.H.’, 2019**

**A Tin Drum That Has Forgotten Its Own Rhythm, 2019**

**Promenade dans l'inconscient, Carré d’Art – Musée d’art contemporain Nîmes, 2016**

**An Incident in The Life of a Philosopher, 2017**

**Cities by the River – Amazon, 2013–2014**

**Cities by the River – Cairo, 2013–2014**

Biography

Anna Boghiguian was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1946 and has Armenian roots. She studied political and social science at the American University of Cairo and holds a BFA in fine arts and music from the Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Since the early 1970s, her art has emerged from various movements around the globe, translating a nomadic experience and gaze into painting and installation, collages and books. As a traveling artist, she tells of how people and ideas, relationships and goods vary and evolve, sometimes bright and fluid, sometimes bound in inequality and oppression. Boghiguian's broad insight into literature and worlds of thought makes her art a profound source of contemplation. In 2015 Boghiguian received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and in 2024 she was awarded the 30th Wolfgang-Hahn-Prize of the Society for Modern Art at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. Her work has been featured in major solo exhibitions around the world, most recently at the Power Plant, Toronto (2023) Kunsthaus Bregenz in Venice (2022), IVAM, Valencia (2021), SMAK, Ghent (2020), Tate St. Ives (2019), the New Museum (2018) and the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2018) and in numerous international group shows including the 22nd Sydney Biennale (2020), Castello di Rivoli, Torino (2019), the Museum of Modern Art, New York City (2017) and the dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2012).

Full Biography

Exhibitions at KOW