The fall of a tree reorganises its surroundings. It changes the light, points of support and contact with the ground; it opens paths and offers shelter and food. What happens to the tree extends to other bodies, whether it remains alive or begins to decompose.

In one of Lapislázuli’s courtyards, a fallen cypress is still alive. The works in The Shape of Still Water coexist with it and with the trees still standing around it. I am struck by how everything became integrated. I read some of these relationships during installation and made them visible through the placement of the works; others appeared later, as if responding to questions left open in the studio.

When working in a situated way, this form of attention becomes circular: I gather materials, work with them and return them to the territory as artworks, where they form connections and open other dialogues.

Some of the works emerge from my interest in the Etruscan underworld and in what happens underground, where the remains of what has died coexist with the roots of what continues to grow. This coexistence runs through The Shape of Still Water, together with an attention to what seems motionless yet continues to transform. The water circulating through the ceramics takes part in these processes. Encountering the cypress allowed me to recognise in the surroundings something I had been exploring through this imaginary: falling, permanence and life do not always follow the order we assign them.

Recently, beside the Nora River in Asturias, I spent a long time watching two donkeys eat a fallen branch. It had fallen in the early hours after the eclipse on 12 August.

The scene made me think again about the cypress. A fall changes much more than the position of a tree: what was once high up becomes available to other bodies. Something of the reorganisation I observe between the works and the trees appeared there too, in the donkeys eating from the branch.