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The Ephemeral (2018)
The concept of Ephemera come from the late 16th century: plural of ephemeron, from Greek, neuter of ephēmeros ‘lasting only a day’. As a singular noun the word originally denoted a plant said by ancient writers to last only one day, or an insect the Ephemera, is the fly which is born but to die, living a single hour, and hence was applied (late 18th century) to a person or thing of short-lived interest.
For the work The Ephemeral, I was inspired by a writing, originally published as “Lettre à Madame B.” but better known as “The Ephemera,” strikes a rare note in the canon of Franklin’s writings: a note of melancholy. In its brooding over the brevity of life and the vanity of human endeavor, creates a mood of the short-term of appearance and disappearance, the fragile and the transcendent and the fleeting existence of an instant.
“It was, he says, the Opinion of learned Philosophers of our Race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast World, the Moulin Joli, could not itself subsist more than 18 Hours; and I think there was some Foundation for that Opinion, since by the apparent Motion of the great Luminary that gives Life to all Nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the Ocean at the End of our Earth, it must then finish its Course, be extinguished in the Waters that surround us, and leave the World in Cold and Darkness, necessarily producing universal Death and Destruction“