Handful of Dust

Referencing the famous lines from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, 'Handful of Dust' brings together a group of emerging artists who either physically use or metaphorically respond to sand in their practice. A possible interpretation of Eliot’s line ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’ is that it can be viewed as a classical reference to the story of the Cumaen Sibyl that Eliot cites in the poem’s epigraph.

First mentioned in Petronius’ Satyricon, the Cumaen Sibyl is a character from Greco-Roman mythology who approaches Apollo at Mount Olympus, asking him to grant her as many years of life as grains of sand she holds in her hand. The Sibyl’s request is granted but, as she did not also ask for eternal youth, she is cursed to age and decay for eternity. The story likely resonated with Eliot as his poem looked to situate the spiritual desolation of post-war society within the context of a hopeless, meaningless trudge through a barren cultural landscape.