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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-6990 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Creators | Bates, Hannah |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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