1. roots of becoming

01 THE PLANT

“I want to grow.”

Willow wants water, light, nourishment, and space. It reaches through roots and branches, continuing simply by becoming.

Desire: growth and continuation.

02 THE MATERIAL

“I want to bend without breaking.”

It accepts the hand, follows a curve, enters a weave, and transforms without completely losing itself. Its strength exists between yielding and holding.

Desire: flexibility and transformation.

03 THE METAPHOR

“I want to bend, but not disappear.”

Willow moves with wind and pressure. Its strength is not resistance, but the ability to yield and continue.

Desire: resilience through flexibility.

04 THE MEANING

“I want to become a connection.”

One branch is fragile. Together, branches become structure. Strength appears between things – where separate elements begin to act as one.

Desire: connection and becoming a whole.

05 THE CONCEPT

“I want to remain in process.”

Willow grows, is cut, dries, breaks down, and begins again. It has no final form, only temporary states of becoming.

Desire: continuous becoming.

06 THE SPACESHAPER

“I want to define space, not enclose it.”

A wall that filters rather than blocks. A shelter that still lets light and air through. A threshold between inside and outside.

Desire: permeability and relationship.

07 THE HISTORY

“I want to carry what hands have learned.”

Every bend, knot, weave, and cut carries knowledge. Willow becomes a meeting point between what grows and what the hand has learned to do.

Desire: memory through making.

08 THE ANCIENT VOICE

“I want to remain part of the living world.”

Water, soil, seasons, decay, renewal. Growth and disappearance are not opposites, but parts of the same cycle.

Desire: belonging to the continuity of life.

09 THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN

“I want nothing from you.”

I do not grow for you. I do not bend for you. I do not become shelter, material, memory, or meaning. Roots move through darkness. Water moves through roots. Matter becomes soil. Soil becomes me again. There is no final form. Only exchange. Only becoming.

Desire: to exist beyond desire.

2. tracing a thought

But who am I to know what the willow wants?

For months, I tried to answer through touching, bending, cutting, weaving, breaking, and starting again. But the more I experimented, the less certain I became. I realised that imagining the willow’s desires is still my own projection.

Experimentation became a form of reciprocity. I changed the material, and the material changed me back. Its resistance, failures, and unexpected responses made me slow down, question my intentions, and try again. Frustration became part of understanding.

Through the willow, I began exploring myself – my need for control, my impatience, my desire for a finished form. Becoming one with the material does not mean becoming the willow, but allowing the boundary between us to become less certain.

Could this become my becoming? Can becoming take physical form? And what happens when the process of becoming becomes the form itself?

3. accumulating thoughts

4. material encounters

5. relearning redoing retrying