Treadmill of meditation

Treadmill of Meditation is an installation that you have to run yourself. The rotating mechanism of an old agricultural machine, using a gear from vertical to horizontal, makes it possible to rake the ground into symmetrical furrows resembling the wavy patterns of a dry Zen garden. From a drone’s perspective, the drawing looks like a giant gramophone record. Treadmill of Meditation helps us free ourselves from the obsessions of daily task sequence, scheduling and planning, helps put idleness into thought. The easiest way to achieve this is by focusing on a monotonous, repetitive activity that requires some physical effort. The seemingly pointless action of infinite earth gathering is the beginning of the path to meditation – into the center of nothingness. This object is another “Monument of Time”, belonging to the cycle of monumental sculptures which attempt to visualize, as befits the title, time. Winding the treadmill, we draw circles on the ground and time stops in them.

Marta Ryczkowska, text from the catalogue