The same time, at the same place
Marula is holding a roll. It is well placed inside a tube. It looks old. When she slides the scroll out, there is a moment of excitement. ry in re-finding lost threadsWhat is going to be revealed? The yellowish tone of the paper suggests the passing of time. The sharp, woody smell hints at the places the scroll has been stored in. Still, the mystery unfolds. When did humans invent scrolls?The ancient Egyptians were using scrolls made of Papyrus. Aparently, this was the first know way to keep and edit texts.
The unfolding scroll Marula holds is a special one. It was not made to be opened and read. It has lines of the slits, each of a different lengh, along whit small, dotes holes, punched into the paper.
What kind of language is it? Morse? How can we decipher it? How can read it?
This is a piano roll, Marula reveals. They habe been in use since the late 19th century. They can be used with a Pianola (player piano). The scores are metronomically arranged, so a flesh and blood pianist can play along. Music!
Like in Marula´s previous works, she gives herself the liberty to rearrange things, to redefine purposes and to assume meanings from different disciplines. The music scroll whith its signs and purposes, transforms in her hand into the playground of stories. Handwritten with the use of stencils, she wrote a continous text, adding another kind of rhythm above the one that already existed.
We follow the words, and a story is unfolding, and the another one, intertwined within. The words from information, the language is building meaning. This is the story of a forgotten train station, the one that we are now transforming into an art residency. It was built aund used, people worked there, and a manager managed it. Trains stopped, passangers went in and out the station, on and off the trains, and goods were loaded und unloaded. Time passed, history passed, the station was closed. Years went by and the place´s purpose changed.
The layers of history remained. Into the formal description, Marula inserts another story, a more private one, a small journey of her passing days in the residency, of the people she meets, the animals she encounters, the forests she walks in.
We, the few people who happend to be there some time are reading our names from the scrolls. We are part of the story. Our chickens and their names are also visible. There is a big story and a small story, and they are intertwined; there is no hierarchy in the way she puts it all into words.
The scroll is slowly opening according to the rythm of our reading. Now it is all open on the table. We dare to touch the thin but strong paper, move pur fingers along the slits and holes. How long did it take to write it all? I did it day by day, Marulas answers.
Day by day, stories need time. Stories are ways to understand ourselves. This, uns, here, happend to be at the same place, at the same time. Others were at the same place, not at the same time. It is trivial and magic standing in paralell. We drink a cup of tea, one of us is re-reading a sentence, another is looking carefully at the small words that accompany the original scores. Marula is rolling back the scroll and inserting it into the tube. We are back in the beginning: a tube, in Marula´s hand. What kind of artwork is this? Was is a performance? It was like a concert. We heard music, the music that words that are being read out aloud produce. Like so many of Marula´s works, you have to be very attentive for the short time it is lived. It is constantly changing and if you look away, or if you came late, you might end up starting at an empty table.
Sharon Horodi