Situated in the field of expanded sculpture, my practice considers how removing viscera from its human context can enhance understandings of the dualities between rejection and acceptance of the ugly, that which is lower than human. Through this exploration, I seek to question how a sculptural art practice that is centred on transgressing the boundaries of the body and self can inform our understanding of what it means to be human. This work was conceived for my advanced sculpture class, as part of our student exhibition at Blenheim House, fulfilling the brief of a site-specific sculpture given by our course convenor. Inspired by the house being overcome by mould, this work seeks to question the relationship humans have with space and draws similarities between this interchange and a parasitical relation between host and infestation by making use of the dining setting. Interested in interrogating the notion that one-way parasitical relations as the basis of human interactions with the world, this work employs a 'humaness' to the infestation that transgresses the boundary our skin provides, that which separates us from the rest of the world. The viscera encountered in this work aims to disrupt the stability of self and ignite the impulse to look and know more by challenging the innate sense of cleanliness we carry through humans desperate attempts to keep that which is grotesque private. It reminds us that we too ooze, leak and excrete - that our skin is a permeable boundary that is in contact with the dirty and infected world.
Parasite, 2022. 2m x 2m, wooden table, 2 wooden chairs, foam, aluminium foil, Apoxie sculpt, acrylic paint, gelatin
Uniting concepts of the body and its relation to the world with parasitism, this work considers the parasite as a primordial, one-way relation at the base of all human interaction. Particularly interested in the way the parasite plays guest, this work uses the meal and dining space to mimic the interchange between guest and host; plumbing the depths of human existence and the obscure revolts of being. As the oozing infection or infestation grows out of the furniture, the work questions; what comfort does he find in his disgust?
