AMÉLIE DAUTEUR – "MOSHI"

2025
6/12
Painted ceramic on a marble base
Height: 32 cm

Moshi is not a name — it is a call. Born in the Meiji era with the arrival of the telephone in Japan, moshi moshi (もしもし) descended from the humble verb mōsu (申す), meaning "to speak" or "to say." When early telephone operators needed to reach someone across a crackling, uncertain line, they repeated the word — twice — to announce themselves, to pierce the silence, to ask: are you there?

Doubled, moshi moshi became the quintessential Japanese telephone greeting. But spoken alone, moshi holds something more raw — a single utterance suspended in the air, waiting for an answer. A voice reaching into the unknown.

Japanese folklore adds a further dimension: it is said that ghosts and shape-shifters can only say moshi once. They cannot complete the greeting. The doubling — moshi moshi — is proof of presence, proof of being fully human, fully here.

With this totem, Amélie Dauteur erects the figure of the call itself. MOSHI is the voice before the response — the moment of reaching out across the void, not yet knowing if anyone will answer. It is connection in its most vulnerable form: one word, extended like a hand, into silence.

Hello? Is anyone there?