Earthly Embodiments: Shifting
Landscapes (2023) works to convey the intersection of humans’ life
experiences with climatic and geological events. How do human
histories and landscape transformations influence one another? How
can art express these experiences in tangible artifacts of
significance?
The manifestations of climate
change are increasingly visible characterised by compounding climatic
catastrophes rather than subtle fluctuations and disruptions. Earthly
Embodiments: Shifting Landscapes examines how people and the
environment change over time in response to shifting climatic
conditions, drawing comparisons between our connections to geography
and our interpersonal relationships.
The work is comprised of a 8
metre-long, low-lying plinth comprised of vintage bricks semi-coated
with a hardened pinkish slip of liquid metamorphic earth. Lined up
along the length of the bricks in subtly shifting tones,
approximately thirty-five small, sculptural soil spheres reference
transformation and the passage of time. They draw inspiration from
the Japanese art of making dorodangos from soil, and employ earth
derived from locations disrupted and damaged by landslides. The
spheres have been transfigured through processes of compacting and
burnishing, replicating here on a small-scale geological processes
occurring similarly on vast terrestrial spaces. At one end of Earthly
Embodiments: Shifting Landscapes, the spheres gradually disintegrate
into loose particles and pieces, following a stream of hardened
metamorphic earth down onto the floor, signalling breakdown and
entropy, the bricks bear unknown human stories of labour and
creativity that converge with nonhuman materialities of earth, fire,
and water.
* Please note that the vintage bricks are not included in the sale of the work.
