2019
Kiri Twentyman-Jones
Scoby, aloe, seaweed, cable, thread
Julia Kristeva philosophises about ‘abjection’, where the ‘absolute realisation’ of life manifests in the desire to distance oneself from that which may be directly threatening to one’s state of existence. I, however, am compelled to challenge the binary structure of life and death, and our automatic response of being repelled by things that generate unease within ourselves, be it human life or that of another. Together with life and death comes a philosophy of embodiment. Contemplating the shoreline’s seemingly fruitless objects, I am simultaneously surprised, disgusted and intrigued by them. Living, decaying, dying and dead things find their way into my studio space, displaced, transformed, re-made and re-contextualised into a personal collection. My interest lies in the aesthetic, textural and sensual realm of these collections. Observing and re-visiting life that still lurks in the space in-between (the shoreline), with life only existing simultaneously to death. A circular view of creation and destruction, desire and discard, and life through to death is materialised. I question where the human might position itself among it all. Perhaps as an instigator of the preservation of not only life, but also the death of so many different organisms on this planet.
