GESTATION
You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff. - Leviticus 19:19.
My installation “Gestation” explores the tensions that are implicit in social contracts between individuals and institutions, and how these “agreements” form our identity.
Only a fine line separates nurture and control. I see the potato as a metaphor for the human being for several reasons: one, the potato is the lowest common denominator of vegetables; two, as a basic staple food, its consumption transcends social boundaries; three, the potato holds energy within, enough to power a radio; and four, its form resembles that of an organ.
When I wrap the potato in latex, I ward off the germs, as would a surgeon when exposing the interior of a human body. I hold the object as I sew the protective pouch and I feel like I’m nurturing it, but at the same time I’m confining the object within this simulation of skin. When the potato hangs suspended from a thread, and with the passing of time, disturbances in the clinical begin to germinate. As the latex either melts with the potato skin as it rots within the pouch, or is stretched and punctured by the roots of a growing potato, the latex sheath becomes an index of the often indistinguishable gradations between artifice and nature, decay and life.
My installation “Gestation” explores the tensions that are implicit in social contracts between individuals and institutions, and how these “agreements” form our identity.
Only a fine line separates nurture and control. I see the potato as a metaphor for the human being for several reasons: one, the potato is the lowest common denominator of vegetables; two, as a basic staple food, its consumption transcends social boundaries; three, the potato holds energy within, enough to power a radio; and four, its form resembles that of an organ.
When I wrap the potato in latex, I ward off the germs, as would a surgeon when exposing the interior of a human body. I hold the object as I sew the protective pouch and I feel like I’m nurturing it, but at the same time I’m confining the object within this simulation of skin. When the potato hangs suspended from a thread, and with the passing of time, disturbances in the clinical begin to germinate. As the latex either melts with the potato skin as it rots within the pouch, or is stretched and punctured by the roots of a growing potato, the latex sheath becomes an index of the often indistinguishable gradations between artifice and nature, decay and life.
