In this projection art piece, I position the iconic statue of The Thinker, located in front of the Philosophy Hall, as a reimagined Dante — not merely a poet, but a thinker, a witness suspended in the fragile moment of thought. The statue’s base becomes The Gates of Hell — not in the literal Inferno sense, but as the threshold into the turbulent terrain of human thought and contemplation.
The base of the statue plays a double role in the work. First, echoing the original placement of Dante above the Gates of Hell, it becomes the projection surface — a screen through which we, like Dante, peer into the metaphysics of thought. It is the portal into the layered, uncertain interiority of reflection. Second, the base transforms — it becomes the voice of the work. An anthropomorphized stone — the very one that supports Dante’s still form — detaches and enters the narrative as “the thought” itself.
What we later witness is the quiet unraveling of the thinking process — not as muscular, stoic, or intellectual mastery, but as a deeply fragile, spiritual condition. It is not about destination, but about surrender. It is about being caught between the known and the unknowable.
This piece is a response to its specific site — placed in front of Columbia’s Philosophy Building, where one of many replicas of this statue stands. While the original figure suggests a muscular, disciplined form of intellect, this work engages its context to question the ideals it represents. At institutions like Columbia, intellect is often framed as linear, forceful, and resolute — a pursuit of mastery. This piece offers a counterpoint: that thinking is rarely muscular. It is fragmented, uncertain, and fogged with emotion. A process less about assertion, and more about endurance.
In this reconfiguration, The Thinker is no longer an icon of stability. He is Dante in suspension, bearing witness to the cost of insight. And the stone beneath him — once assumed to be solid ground — becomes the soul of the story, floating, feeling, and searching.
