Jamilah Sabur presents a composition of text and image reminiscent of a visual abecedarian combining coloured-neon letters with images drawn
from nature or human activity, and her personal symbology, displayed in a cascading arrangement.
Enigmatically illuminating three different languages, the neon words “Eltanin,” “trappa,” and “flut” are respectively associated with the image of a basalt rock from the Siberian Traps; the view of manganese nodules carpeting the ocean floor captured by geologists aboard the U.S.Navy ice- breaking research vessel Eltanin in the late 1960s. Eltanin, named after a giant star located in the constellation Draco, is about 471 times more luminous than the Sun and the name derives from Arabic At-Tinnin, meaning “the great serpent.” Eltanin has been used as a spectral standard for its class since 1943. Its spectrum serves as one of the stable anchor points for the Morgan-Keenan system of spectral classification, used to classify other stars.
The German word “flut” meaning flood is a reference to the geological formation of flood basalts, the most voluminous of all extrusive igneous rocks, forming enormous deposits of basaltic rock– the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that covers large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. The Swedish word “trappa” meaning stairway is the etymological origin for the common trap rock displayed in Sabur’s arrangement.
In Sabur’s works where she combines image and text the relationship is liminal, the photographs correspond only vaguely to the meaning of the statements made by the neon signs, creating poetic shifts and semiotic dissonances. One word at a time, Sabur explores the limits of language by pointing out the incapacity of words and images to entirely contain what they aim to define. Like strata accumulated in a rocky protuberance, they hold a memory and a temporality, opening a door to changing and multiple interpretations. an antipode, a stairway, a spectral standard from Arabic At-Tinnin offers a new planetary language that articulates alternative geographies.