inkjet prints on paper, wood, agar, duration (2017)

With my graduation work Cache I intended to visualise the disintegration that usually slips through our immediate perception. It employs one material in particular: agar-agar.

Agar is made of a type of algae, called agarophytes, that belong to the red algae phylum. It is derived from the supporting cell walls of the organism, the polysaccharide agarose, and is released on boiling. Agar has been used as an ingredient in desserts and as a solid substrate to host growth media for microbiological work.

My interest in working with agar, and organic material in general, is the pace in which it alters itself. As opposed to other, more synthetic and stable material, it is hard to predict how it will change, because it has a life of its own. Therefore I never exactly know what to expect before I arrive at the studio, which is part of the excitement: something has dried up, spilt its contents or started moulding.

This is the manifestation, or sensation, I wanted to bring into the gallery space. To create a window for this alteration, the life stream, and give the viewer a certain agency in deciding when to perceive the work; which would define it according to its current state of deterioration. To see it as a slice of time, a film still (‘een momentopname’), and realise you are part of what you observe.


See also the publication of the Sandberg Graduation Show.
Supported by:
Cache
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