The challenge to define and categorise of what is the “human” is always altering and challenged regularly. With the evolution of technology and various influences such as social-cultural influences, the “human” is constantly building itself to fit within the standardised norm and forging relationships with other humans and different ecologies around them. Nature and humans have been co-existing each other for an extended period. However, the relationship between the two doesn't exactly live in harmony. The imbalance in the relationship between human and the natural world reflects on the human act and carelessness of over-exploiting the natural resources of our environment.
My approach towards the second assessment is to create a series of sculptures that reflect human activities on the environment. To show the relationships between “human” and natural, I decided to manipulate various parts of the human body to resemble branches and other natural aesthetics. Throughout my research, Kate MacDowell nature and human sculptures became my main source of inspiration as the artist concept was to examine the romantic relationships between the natural world the impact of the contemporary human society. In the works, MacDowell embedded human causing effects on nature such as climate change, toxic pollution gm crops and environmental impacts caused by humans in various body parts such as ears, lungs, hands and feet. Another artist I came across during my research is Guillermo Guardia, where I was intrigued by his “puzzled human sculptures.” From seeing the puzzle clay humans, I reflected on how the puzzles can be used in my major works, with the puzzle representing evolving and connections. I also like the idea of the puzzle pieces as reflects my concept I developed in my first assessment of how the “human” is constantly evolving and “elements of a human”.
All three sculptures in my body of work are made from polymer clay in which I purposely chose the colour beige as it was similar to human skin. My concept is reform the human physique to convey the negative impact on the environment as well as metaphorically showing human values through nature. The puzzle pieces in my works have of cravings of categories in which humans can be sorted. The puzzle is meant to represent building and breaking down of these categories of “the making of a human” as well as relationships.
In my first work, I like to call it “deforestation of the human”. The reason I decided to capture deforestation / cutting down of trees is that it reflects on of the harmful relationships that human imposed on the environment. I decided to capture deforestation in the human form (by breaking branch like limbs and removed head from body) to reflect the negative relationships between humans and nature and metaphorically convey that the “human” is constantly changing and being built. The puzzle pieces are a feature throughout all the works to represent human values / categories that define the human, where the puzzle represent “connections, relationships, and building and removing”.
The second sculpture in the body of work is made to resemble a pot-plant in the form of the human hand, The fingers resemble branches that are wrap with leaves. The pot is made of puzzle pieces of different categories the “human” are sorted. The concept of this piece was to represent that like plants, humans need to be looked after in order to grow and developed in order to survive as well as metaphorically showing the relationship that we “humans” have with nature is determined by our actions that are represented by the hand.
My last piece, I created a sculpture of the human footprint that is wrap in vines and leaves representing nature as well as a deformed sunflower. The reason behind my choice was that I wanted to capture the human activities and it effect on the environment in which is plant mutation in this artwork. I chose the “foot” to represent the “human footprint” / actions that we have on the environment. I kept the element of the puzzle pieces which are displayed in my other works to represent the “connection” of human conscious and the natural world. To create the deformed flower, I researched various plants mutations and found that the sunflower most pleasing. The deformed flower was a result from radiation from the Fukushima.
To show the relationship between humans and the environment through merging the natural environment and the human physique. Through viewing my work, I hope the audience take a chance to re-evaluate our influences upon the environment and the similarities in how we treat another human or ourselves can have the same effect as the environment.
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