Senescence Has Its Purpose (2020)
38" x 36" x 7"
Plaster, Alginate
Building from a desire for contact and envelopment, Senescence Has Its Purpose combines video and sculpture. Beginning with an alginate negative of the body, an attempt is made to return to the void, only to be confronted with a change in its state and dimension during the body's absence.
The mold is subsequently cast in a mixture of plaster and concrete. No longer functional as a vessel for the body, it transforms into a memoriam for a previous self. The resulting object combines the body with the receptacle that held it. It is not so much a replica of the body as a replica of a moment of union between the body and the containing object.
The possibility is then created of physically holding that moment, removing the void from its transitory state and bringing it into one of (relative) permanence. The body, although it has lost its shelter, has gained contact in the form of the holding of a previous self.