Hello, what you are about to read is personal. But I would like for you to look at the image and read the words that I have written because I believe that this object holds the keys to understanding the work that is becoming ‘Symbállein’.
There is someone that I met in 2025 that has taken on a loose creative mentor position for me. They tasked me with explaining my practice, why I do the work I do, and who it is for. I took this task seriously and looked within myself to find the answers because I knew they would be there, somewhere.
Symbállein is the Ancient Greek root of the word symbol. It quite literally means ‘to bring together’. I came across this term during my research for my audio paper in Byung Chul Han’s book ‘the disappearance of rituals’
“Rituals are also symbolic practices, practices of symballein, in these that they bring people together and create alliance, a wholeness, a community. Symbolism as a medium of community is gradually disappearing.”
I couldn’t think of a more perfect word to describe this period of my creative life:
- Bringing together my interests (sound, photography, visual) to create something that is deeply personally mad allowing for a greater level of expression.
- Bringing together all of the different types of sound that I have used since I started making music.
- Physically bringing together objects (typewriting, hand-binding, CD) to create something that will be unique each time. Memories can be found in physical artefacts and I want people to be able to own what they enjoy.
- Planning to bring together people in a time when people feel so isolated and alone. Ultimately this time is about connection and communication, something that I have struggled with for a long time.
Around the same time I was reading through the book, I was looking into symbols to use for as an emblem for this project.