Weathered Soul
The Wall I Built
by Marion van den Ende
I laid this wall myself, stone by stone, to let no one in again. From the outside it looks like protection; from the inside I stand alone on the good side. Look closely and you will see the wall and I share the same face.
- TechniqueHahnemühle · Dibond
- Size100 × 75 cm
- EditionEdition of 24
- Price€995
On this psyche
Almost everyone builds walls sooner or later. After a disappointment, a loss or a rupture, we lay a course of stone around the heart — a quiet pact with ourselves that nothing will ever cut so deep again. At first it feels like strength: peace at last, safe at last. And often the wall truly was there for us in the moment we needed it most.
But a wall knows no direction. It keeps the pain out, and with it the warmth, the chance encounter, the hand held out. Whoever shuts themselves off entirely pays with loneliness for a safety nothing threatens any longer. That is neither weak nor foolish — it is human, and it happens so gradually that you barely notice laying the final stone.
And yet this is not a bleak image. To see that the wall is your own is already the first crack through which the light falls. What you have built yourself, you can open again yourself — not all at once, but stone by stone, whenever it feels safe enough to let someone in.
