A Turtle Fondly in Imaginary Worlds and the Desire for Certainty and Control features an antique taxidermy turtle with a glass vessel on its back, housing a living bonsai tree. The work draws on the World Turtle myth—a recurring mytheme in various cultures that envisions the world carried upon a giant turtle. Here, it serves as a metaphor for humanity’s ongoing quest to make sense of existence, spanning from ancient mythologies to modern scientific frameworks.

The bonsai tree within the glass vessel represents earth, but it also reflects the human desire to shape and control nature to fit specific ideals or aesthetics. The careful cultivation of the bonsai mirrors this impulse, embodying both reverence and manipulation. Through this juxtaposition, the artwork invites viewers to consider the balance between appreciation of the natural world and the compulsion to dominate it. By referencing both myth and scientific narratives, A Turtle Fondly explores the ways humans construct stories to impose certainty on an inherently unpredictable world, ultimately questioning the limits of such control.

This work forms part of The Absence of Alice project.