Our Hands, 2020

In 2020, due to the pandemic, we are forced to refrain from any social intimacy, from handshakes to hugs. Touch, an essential navigation tool in our daily lives, has been limited to what is necessary. This condition results in social trauma and collective grief. Yet, this ban in the physical world meets with its exact opposite in the digital world. Using these very hands, we navigate the digital realm via our devices to maintain our personal and professional lives up to an extent. Our hands are the interface. The hand is the tool of tools, according to Aristotle. The hand, apart from its grasping functions, is loaded with several representations. Among them, the oldest ones are the handprints or hand paintings in Paleolithic and Neolithic caves. Archaeologists and paleoanthropologists cannot interpret them. They might be a mark of self-awareness or communication with the spirit world of ancestors. The palm has been read, with palmistry having its roots in Hindu astrology, Chinese Yijing and Roma fortune tellers. In the field of alternative medicine, reflexology offers healing through pressure on specific reflex points. Open hands in various cultures symbolize blessing, healing, openness, fragility, praying, surrender, cursing. This series of 24 new unique works, dedicated to each hour of the solar day on Earth, brings together various human hand representations updated and informed by the highly digitally mediated present.