A Human’s Guide to Preserving Nature
Material: Plastic, glass, aluminum, gum, wire, plaster, wood
Unlike many other pieces that appreciate death and decay by showing the beauty of life flourishing from the remain, this project takes on a more pessimistic view regarding the regrowth, which is, the stagnation of such cycles due to human intervention.
One thing during Linda’s presentation that interested me is the modern human’s philosophy regarding decay, the attempt of trying our best to preserve organic material, or nature itself. Such behaviors can often be reflected on the use of preservative, chemical and packaging, especially on food. The irony is that our attempt of countering decay suppresses life itself. The packaging and chemicals used in this process is often non-degradable, never involved in the life cycle again, further polluting our environment.
The sculpture involves a decaying piece of log, where it had been left exposed to nature for years, and if left untouched, insects, bacteria, fungus and other plants will soon break it down and utilize it for their own growth, however human intervention caused the decay to stop. The human attempts to preserve the structure of the crumpling log by stuffing it with man made material, making it an ugly alienating sandwich. The materials used here are often used to preserve food, such as aluminum, wax, plastic, and glass.
The parts that were taken from nature (the log), instead of being put back into the environment, had been carefully put into packages, like how food is preserved nowadays. These wood chips and sawdust are all collected from the carving process and put into containers found in my very own trash.
A “picnic” is held, but a normal picnic in nature, the picnic is held indoors on the concrete floor under an artificial fluorescent light on top of a body bag as the picnic blanket, as blindly using preservatives and producing inorganic waste will inevitably lead to our own end.
Also the title A Human’s Guide to Preserving Nature is just a bit of sarcasm, I imagined my process on the sculpture (as a human also) is a good representation of what humans are doing to nature as a whole. Considering how arrogant we are to change, it very well will be seen as our final solution to natural reservation.
