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Installation view

Walter Benjamin refers to the ‘aura’ of an object as being dependent upon its location in both time and space, informed by its materiality and the process of creation, resulting in a unique identity for each object. This investigation is concerned with the role that individual character and memory might play in the understanding of the object. The contradiction between interior and exterior in the hand picked macrocarpa beams was a starting point for questioning if it is possible to disrupt the more conventionally held views of identity and understanding of objects through disruption of form and material.

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Detailed view. Macrocarpa, concrete, plaster, glass, lead, spatial absence.
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Plaster, glass, spatial absence.

Duplicating parts of objects in different materials and placing them in other objects, or substituting the entire material of an object with another material, questions the origin and identity of the whole or parts of the object. Each relocated duplication brings with it some trace or imprinted memory of its original location that informs the ‘aura’ or identity of the new object.

 
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Macrocarpa, concrete, glass, lead, plaster, spatial absence.
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Plaster, glass.

When parts of objects are absent, recollection of their original presence helps to understand and visually complete the objects, requiring memory to hold the similarities and differences between their form and materiality. The physical filling in of these voids draws attention to the absence as opposed to the presence. Now the differences rather than the similarities become the defining points contributing to the uniqueness of each object, challenging conventional views of identity and understanding of objects through the disruption of form and material.

 
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Macrocarpa, concrete, glass, spatial absence.

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