Touching death

2020-2022

In 2020 we were asked to adjust our ways of mourning. My family and I were confronted by this when my grandfather fell ill with Covid-19. We were unable to hold his hand or say goodbye. This negatively impacted our mourning process.

The urn shrouded in a skin like texture evokes closeness and touch. The urn can also evoke a more morbid experience. Challenging our fear of closeness to death. Challenging our fear of the transformation of the body.

The urn was further developed at bio art laboratories within the talent pressure cooker program.

The skin like texture was created with the scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that grows on top of kombucha. During the growing phase I added three different human substances; hair, blood and isolated DNA from the cheek. The scoby absorbed the human substances and was eventually dried and formed around an iron wire frame.

The urn is decomposable yet stable when indoors.

This project was first presented during the Dutch Design week 2022 at Bio Art Laboratories.

Now on show at “Leven en Laten Leven” at the Jan Cunen Museum in Oss.

I will also give three workshops at the museum where we will personalize our own scoby’s with dna and tattoo’s.

Cabinet was traditionally handmade by meubelmakerij Floris Rot

Progress at BioArt Laboratories

Group publication for ansible institute

The ruins publication is made by the visual culture honours minor of 2020. It’s an archeological guide where we present our objects (projects) of our time as if discovered by a future archeologists.

You can buy the publication on the website or at the Atheneum bookstore in Amsterdam

https://ruins.hotglue.me/