#1406 Where Rivers are Born

About This Aquascape

The title Where Rivers Are Born comes from the idea of standing at the very beginning of a river. I wanted to take the viewer to a part of Mauritius that is easy to overlook, not the coast, but the highlands, where rainwater begins its journey through volcanic rock, dense vegetation and finding its way between roots and stones. For me, this is Mauritius before the coast. The highlands. The volcanic rocks. The dense vegetation. The quiet places where water starts its journey. I wanted to create something that feels connected to the landscape I grew up around and know personally. Mauritius is a volcanic island, and our rivers begin in these highland areas before making their way down towards the sea. I have been to some of these places, and what stayed with me was not just what they looked like, but how they felt, the density of the vegetation, the rocks, the water, and especially the silence. The hardscape uses locally collected lava rock and driftwood. I wanted the materials themselves to feel like they belonged to this landscape, rather than simply being placed there to create a composition. The branching wood represents the trees and roots growing along the riverbanks, while the dense planting reflects the way vegetation takes over the landscape. I like the fact that in nature, things are rarely perfectly clean or separated. Plants grow over rocks, roots cross each other, and water finds its own way through everything. The pale sand at the bottom represents the beginning of the river. At this stage, it is still small and almost fragile, just a path where water is starting to move through the landscape. Takashi Amano's work has influenced me greatly, especially his way of looking at nature as a whole rather than as individual elements. I have tried to approach this aquascape in the same spirit, while making it personal to where I come from. Every stone, every piece of wood and every plant is part of my memory of Mauritius. This aquascape is my way of bringing a small piece of those places into the glass, a river before it becomes a river, at the moment where it is born.