Thief of Time

Thief of Time reimagines an ancient water clock, the clepsydra, as a shared meditation on the passage of time and our relationship with time's flow. Two glass vessels: one suspended above, steadily releasing water; the other below, containing the flow of water, measuring its passage. This flow marks the duration of a participant’s presence.

When exhibited, the audience is invited to interact with the piece: to lift the water from the lower vessel, time once belonging to someone else, and return it to the upper one. This simple act becomes a quiet theft. One person's spent time becomes the raw material for another's. Time, once passed, is repurposed. In this way, Thief of Time becomes a collective act of remembrance and an invitation to dwell in the present, not as a fixed point, but as a current carried by many hands.

Each of these interactions is photographed, with only the participant’s hands visible. These anonymous images form a growing archive throughout the gallery, a record of stolen time, reclaimed time. The photographs represent a linear temporal narrative, while the act of using and reusing time through the clepsydra creates a temporal cycle.