Zente at St. Tola’s Cross (2025) shows a child standing before the Cross. The child is aligned centrally beneath the carved figures on the cross, which establishes a clear line between the past and the present. However, where the cross has been chiselled in stone, the child wears a padded coat and a beanie, which takes the past to the present.
The presence of the child is active as the space has been reclaimed- the hat gives the work a playful atmosphere interrupting the still and immovable cross. The past, however, has not been romanticised nor rejected but rather is reinvented within the lens of the living generations. The cross is symbolic as religious and historical are now the background- yet still powerful but is no longer the only voice- the child has become the main voice embodying the future that is active and changing.
Behind the cross is a church and a wall that looks slightly damaged with overgrowths and falling wooden supports. The traditions don’t disappear but change over time as they become overgrown and their meanings change with each generation.
Samhain (2025) presents a figure cloaked, barefoot wearing a rabbit-like mask staring directly toward the viewer. The figure is standing still against the very organised and geometric repetitive houses and cars in the background. The costume with the mask and the oversized coat invites the viewer to think more than just a Halloween reading of the work. Rather it seems to gesture us towards the Púca, though the purposeful ambiguity from the work blurs this and questions the viewer to think about how myths change through time.
As the oversized coat is a hand-me-down thus a part of familial inheritance both literally and culturally; the coat thus acts as the symbol of the transmission of rituals. Traditions are rarely passed down generations intact- rather they are adapted, changed and grown into. Thus the child is not just in the costume but is adapting the history of the coat and creating a new history.
Overall, the two works together create a conversation surrounding how cultural memories are carried through generations and how they are reshaped and sometimes stumbled into. Both works are centred around children, who are the people to whom the culture and rituals are handed down. From standing before the ancient cross or costumed as a Púca – it doesn’t just inherit tradition but rather the tradition is worn like clothes and adapts to their terms.
However, within the stillness of the compositions- they resist being a spectacle and ask the viewer to slow down and reconsider how survival looks like for customs and beliefs from another age. Heritage isn’t shown as a fixed or fragile concept but rather something that reshapes itself and changes through each generation and builds upon itself. It is less about nostalgia and more about the continuity of the living- that generations build upon each other and adapt.