SUPER KICK CLOUD
I collected 150 used drum skins—some torn, some worn smooth, some barely holding together—and unfolded, unpacked, and let them float randomly across the wall. Not neatly ordered, but gathered like a living, shifting body. Each skin is different: large, small, beautiful, broken, barely surviving. I began treating them as beings rather than objects—each carrying its own history and personality.
What first drew me to these drum skins was their resemblance to human skin. A drum’s surface, like the body, is made to resound—to be struck, to vibrate, to respond. Over time, that surface is scraped, sliced, battered. It records every impact. The skins in this installation are no longer vibrant. Their scars, tears, and stains are the only traces left of the sounds they once made. Once full of noise and energy, they are now silent. They have become mute witnesses to their own history.
Drums are built to call attention—to make themselves heard. But the more they are played, the more they are worn down, until eventually, they fall silent. This cycle mirrors something human: how we are shaped, marked, and sometimes damaged by the forces around us. These discarded skins represent not just instruments that have outlived their sound, but lives—marked by experience, and left behind.
The installation invites broader reflection: on how bodies—human or otherwise—are used, worn down, silenced, and forgotten. In a world where individuals are often consumed by larger systems and left without a voice, these broken surfaces quietly resist disappearing completely. The sounds they once made are gone, but the vibration they carried still lingers—stored somewhere in space.
The installation needs space—industrial warehouses, shipping containers, or large open buildings—places where the skins can hold their own without being lost. Spaces that echo the fragility and persistence of the objects themselves.
They no longer make sound.
But something else is happening now.
Something quieter. Something waiting.