DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/PAYF-PQ66
Defense Date
2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Craft/Material Studies
First Advisor
Jack Wax
Second Advisor
Bohyun Yoon
Third Advisor
Heath Matysek-Snyder
Fourth Advisor
Lily-Cox Richard
Abstract
The forest is teeming with activity: fungi transform dead logs into nutrients, roots entangle themselves with the earth, and strong winds break resilient boughs. Like the forest, the human body functions according to a complex system of agents - from the micro bacteria in the gut to the pores of the skin. The built world has often been rendered in opposition to these processes of nature. As a vessel through which the world is experienced, the body is an intermediary between raw matter and fabricated things. The planet is suffused with human life, and there is a critical tension between human production and the well-being of the biosphere. Is there an ecological benefit to dissolving the division between the human-made and the organic? My exhibition, I Thought the Earth Remembered Me, integrates the ambiguous forms of the forest into mass-produced sheetrock walls in order to break down the boundary between the built and natural world. Through making, I hope the work unearths a way to be enchanted on a damaged planet.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-9-2019