The Fifth Sun

The Fifth Sun renders the planet as a suspended frame drum. The hemp surface, 2.2 metres across, takes the shape of a daf, the frame drum familiar in Saudi Arabia, and bears an illustrated landscape inked into its skin. Every impact on the membrane registers as a human action, and the projected image trembles in response.

Many creation myths describe the universe as moving through vast cycles of making and unmaking. In Aztec cosmology, the universe has already lived through four such eras, or "suns". We live beneath the fifth. This epoch is said to be one of motion: a time when the earth will rattle, and lives may be sacrificed in hopes of quieting it. War, conflict, greed and rapid environmental loss all keep the Fifth Sun beating.

Shono treats the drum as a body the planet shares with us. Each strike is a small accounting, a record of what we ask of the surface beneath us. The image holds for a moment, then shudders back into noise.