Living Organisms for Living Spaces

This paper examines the concept of materiality and how my work engages it. In line with art historian Edward J. Sullivan, I approach materials as potential objects functioning as cultural signifiers. I explore the idea of material through Monika Wagner’s approaches as active matter that is full of energy. That means that materials do not need to be handled by human hands in order to be activated; they have the power to speak by themselves. The selection of materials I make to develop the project focuses on fabrics and garments used in the language of decoration. This decision is driven by my interest and observation of ornamentation in architecture and home decoration. Through ornamentation I explore the tension I find in the relationship that we have as subjects with culture and nature. In this tension, I scrutinize the need of humans to control almost everything around them. I inspect the actions and signs imbed in ornamentation to exert control. In order to narrow the point of reflection I bring up memories from my Catholic childhood to exemplify the sources of nourishment and support the visual language that I develop. I draw on Sir Ernst Gombrich in order to illuminate the psychology of the ornamentation and problematize nature-culture dualities. Gombrich remarks that the need for ornamentation is connected with our biological inheritance. Our cognitive system requires ways to order and systematize so as to create states of comfort and tranquility. This modus operandi is applied to every aspect of our life. I parallel this need to control with colonialism. Along with the material exploration and the attempt to disrupt the tendency to order and control, I study Gretchen E. Henderson’s approach to the idea of ugliness as “matter out of place”, and also to Ernst Jensch’s understanding of “the uncanny” as something unusual that causes confusion. These are the strategies and methods I apply to the materials to create uneasiness and alter viewer’s perception. Ultimately, my intention is to provoke viewers’ curiosity to explore ways of seeing outside of the paradigm that controls them.