“These woodcut prints were produced in a series titled ‘Saturn Sequence’ using modular tiles with a pictorial motif of dice-like pips denoting the numbers 5, 6, 11 or 6, respectively.
This numerical sequence came to me as a result of a conversation with one of the primary school students with whom I work. They were pondering which days of the week their birthday would fall on each year, leading us to map a chronology.
We learned that it would take 28 years for an individual to have celebrated their birthday on each day of the week, and a curious pattern emerged: 5, 6, 11, 6.
If one’s birthday in a given year is to fall on a Friday for example, the next time it would again fall on a Friday would be in 5 years time, then 6, then 11, then another 6 years - completing the 28 year orbit.
Coincidentally, I was 28 years old at the time of this realisation, and was considering the popular notion of the ‘Saturn return’ due to Saturn’s 28 year long trajectory around the sun. The structure of the Gregorian calendar too reflects the significance of multiples of 7 & 4 (eg. 7 days in a week, at least 4 weeks/28 days in a month).
The realisation of teleological patterns is at once both bizarre and banal. The clock, the calendar, the planets — these items sit plainly your wall, float uncomplainingly through space yet constitute the rhythm of every waking moment. And what do you do when a new time signature emerges out of the ordinary? You could tap your fingers or hopscotch down the street — to a new beat: 5, 6, 11, 6.
Casual onlookers would be none the wiser about the swing in your step, and the view from the cosmic clock is much the same. It spares you no care in your attempts to meet its gaze.
It ticks on and you audit its murmurs.”