Materials: Video performance, water, bathroom corner, bathtub, soundscape
Duration: Approx. 12 minutes
This installation captures on video an intimate act of unlayering as I inhabit the corner of a bathroom, a liminal, enclosed space that mirrors vulnerability and transformation.
The performance begins in the corner, sound of running water, a subtle reminder of cleansing and renewal. I have more than 15 layers of clothing on and I begin to remove each layer piece by piece. Once complete I move into the bathtub, the act of removing my final layer becomes both physical and symbolic, exposing not just my body but the weight of identity, memory, and observation.
The corner becomes my refuge, a “negation of the universe” where I am simultaneously shielded and exposed. By staring directly at the camera, I confront the act of being observed in this private space, challenging notions of visibility, intimacy, and performance. The layered process removing, stepping, and staring becomes a confrontation and release, drawing viewers into the tension between privacy and exposure.
This work invites viewers to reflect on their own unlayering, where identity is shed and rebuilt in moments of quiet, vulnerable solitude.
In this performance, I will lie curled in the fetal position in the corner for an extended duration, while the camera watches me. The fetal position symbolizes a return to my most original state innocence, safety, and vulnerability. The corner, as described by Bachelard, becomes a “place of immobility,” offering protection and solace from the outside world. This performance reflects themes of regression, stillness, and introspection, confronting the raw, unfiltered representation of human fragility.
Inspirations
1. Tracey Emin, My Bed (1998)
Emin’s work explores vulnerability and regression, showing the bed as a space for emotional breakdown and intimacy.
2. Bill Viola, The Sleep of Reason (1988)
Viola’s video works explore human fragility and introspection through stillness and subtle movement.
3. Sophie Calle, The Sleepers(1979)
Calle’s work documents people sleeping, emphasizing themes of vulnerability and the body’s relationship to space.
4. Ron Mueck, Dead Dad (1996)
Mueck’s hyperrealistic sculpture of vulnerability and human fragility resonates with the fetal position’s symbolism.
This concept envisions a performance where I metaphorically become a spider, weaving a web around myself in the corner of a room. The corner transforms into a cocoon, symbolizing isolation, protection, and self-created boundaries. By becoming part of the web, I reflect on themes of entrapment and safety, highlighting the complex relationship between solitude and entanglement. This performance references the corner as both a prison and a sanctuary, blurring the line between confinement and comfort.
Inspirations
1. Ann Hamilton, the event of a thread (2012)
Hamilton’s installations use thread and weaving to create immersive spaces that echo entrapment and release.
2. Louise Bourgeois, Maman(1999)
Bourgeois’ spider sculptures symbolize maternal protection and fear, inspiring the duality of your spider web performance.
3. Eva Hesse, Contingent (1969)
Hesse’s use of hanging, fibrous forms creates a cocoon tension between fragility and structure.
4. Chiharu Shiota, The Key in the Hand (2015)
Shiota’s thread installations envelop spaces, inspiring the visual of weaving oneself into a corner.
This concept explores the symbolic act of removing layers of clothing while sitting in a corner. Each layer represents societal expectations, pressures, mental and personal burdens. The corner becomes a space of release, vulnerability, and introspection, where I peel away everything external to reveal my truest, most authentic self. The performance is a meditation on the tension between the self and the outside world, highlighting how corners serve as havens for shedding what no longer serves us.
Inspirations
1. Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present (2010)
Abramović’s stillness and vulnerability inspire the emotional depth of revealing one’s true self in a shared space.
2. Yoko Ono, Cut Piece (1964)
Ono’s performance, where participants cut away her clothing, mirrors the act of removing external layers under societal pressure
QCQ: Corners from The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
1. QUOTE
“The corner becomes a negation of the Universe. In one’s corner, one does not talk to oneself. It is the place of immobility. The corner, quite as much as the house, belongs to the phenomenology of the verb to inhabit.”
2. COMMENT
This quote is compelling, it captures the profound solitude and stillness that a corner represents. Bachelard describes the corner as a place where one can retreat from the world a “negation of the Universe.” It’s not just a physical space but a state where the mind becomes quiet and reflective. Unlike open spaces, a corner allows one to truly inhabit a place, both physically and psychologically, highlighting the intimacy of this hidden, almost forgotten part of a room.
I relate to this in my own experiences of finding comfort and escape in small, quiet spaces. When overwhelmed, I instinctively seek out corners or enclosed areas, feeling that they offer a kind of protective boundary from external noise and chaos. Bachelard’s idea of the corner as a “place of immobility” resonates deeply with how I see it as a refuge, a space where time pauses and the self feels more authentic. There I am unburdened by external pressures.
3. QUESTION
How might the idea of “inhabiting” a corner relate to our need for privacy, reflection, and emotional safety in a hyperactive world?
This sculpture explores the human desire for connection, memory, and touch by creating plaster impressions of my hand, a hand I can hold and touch from the outside. By casting the physical act of holding, the piece materializes the dual experience of presence and absence. The impression serves as both a personal artifact and a negative space, preserving the intimacy of a hand’s imprint while confronting the tension of disembodied connection.
I reflect on the significance of touch as an emotional bridge holding space for self-connection and memory.
This piece highlights the power of simple acts touching a hand and feeling texture and their ability to ground us in our experiences.
I imprinted my hand and then after I poured plaster into the negative to make a positive impression I added veranera flowers to the plaster so I can hold my mother’s flowers within my hand for eternity.
Negative Fragments Through impressions made in clay. By pressing my hands into the clay, I create a negative space that captures what was once there. These imprints preserve a moment of connection, turning touch into a lasting form. The emptiness left behind becomes just as important as the object itself, acting as a quiet reminder of memories, gestures, and the spaces we inhabit.
This concept focuses on imprinting the unique floor texture of my parents’ house, a space filled with personal and history. By capturing the physical texture, the piece preserves the subtle details of a familiar environment that often go unnoticed. Inspired by Whiteread’s transformation of spaces into concrete form, this work elevates the ordinary into the extraordinary, transforming a floor something walked on daily into a tangible memory object. It reflects how spaces hold stories and memories, creating a physical archive of a place that is significant to my upbringing and familial ties.
Inspirations:
1. Rachel Whiteread, House (1993)
Preserving architectural spaces through concrete casting.
2. Vija Celmins, To Fix the Image in Memory (1977-82)
Capturing details of overlooked textures.
3. Tara Donovan, Untitled (2014)
Using materials to emphasize pattern and surface.
4. Richard Long, A Line Made by Walking (1967) Transforming traces of movement into art.
This concept explores familial connection and heritage by creating imprints of my own feet alongside those of my parents. Footprints serve as symbolic traces of presence, lineage, and shared experience. Inspired by Whiteread’s preservation of architectural imprints, this work transforms a transient mark into a lasting object. The footprints will capture differences in scale and detail, evoking ideas of growth, family roles, and the physical paths we walk together. By solidifying these traces, the piece becomes a dialogue between generations, preserving both the physical and emotional connections to my family.
Inspirations:
1. Rachel Whiteread, Ghost (1990) –
Exploring familial and architectural imprints.
2. Kiki Smith, Untitled (1992)
A sculptural focus on the human body and physical presence.
3. Janine Antoni, Loving Care (1993)
Highlighting personal gestures and body as art.
4. Maya Lin, Eclipsed Time (1994) –
A work that incorporates time and memory through tactile marks.
This concept focuses on the deeply personal act of connecting with oneself by creating an imprint of my hand. By casting the form of my hand in a material of plaster with negative impressions of the clay, I aim to create an object that allows me to physically hold and touch my own hand as though from an external perspective. Inspired by Rachel Whiteread’s House, this idea explores themes of presence, absence, and self-reflection. The imprint symbolizes both the tangible and intangible parts of identity, how we occupy space and how we leave traces of ourselves behind. This hand becomes a meditative gesture, blurring the boundary between the internal self and external materiality.
Inspirations:
1. Rachel Whiteread, House (1993)
For its exploration of imprints and negative space.
2. Antony Gormley, Hands I (2005) –
Hands reflecting self-connection and humanity.
3. Mona Hatoum, Performance Still (1985)
Emphasizing personal and physical presence through tactile materials.
4. Marc Quinn, Self (1991) –
Explores ideas of identity and material preservation through physical traces of the body.
“The literal cast of our imprints on the world. It casts both the house that was purposely made the rooms, the doorways, the windows and the marks that were made inadvertently from scratches, the dents, the peeling wallpaper and the sagging floor.”
2. COMMENT
This quote speaks to the physical traces of human presence captured in Rachel Whiteread’s House. By transforming the negative space of a home into concrete, Whiteread immortalizes both deliberate construction and accidental wear. It highlights the lived history of a space; how time, human activity, and imperfection shape architecture and make it personal. The peeling wallpaper are not just flaws but proof of life and memory, embedded into the very fabric of the house.
I connect this to the idea that physical spaces are more than functional; they are vessels for stories. A crack in a wall or an imprint saving a moment in existence, are moments that may have been mundane but are now preserved as part of the work’s materiality. Whiteread’s decision to cast these traces challenges our perception of decay, inviting us to see beauty and meaning in the imperfections of a lived-in space.
3. QUESTION
How can the physical imprints and flaws in a space reflect larger ideas of memory, human presence, and the passage of time?
A Structure within a Structure: “Fallen Tree 2024”
By: Natasha Ramos
Dimensions: 10ft x 6ft
Materials: Steels Rods, Steel Scraps, Branches, Flashlight, Video
"The object needs a room, but now the room needs an object." Oscar Tuazon.
The “Fallen Tree 2024” blends industrial and natural elements to capture a moment where nature sits at the edge of life and decay. Outside my condo, a tree once stood strong until it was struck by lightning, rotting from within and finally falling over. I reimagined this fallen tree using steel rods, scraps, and real branches, echoing its form as it lay against the side of the building. Using a flashlight to illuminate the sculpture, shadows stretch across it like a spotlight, creating intricate patterns of light and dark, almost as if bringing the tree back to life for a moment. This piece speaks to the endless cycle of nature breaking down and renewing itself, while also questioning how human-made materials play a part in that cycle. The “Fallen Tree” stands as something beautiful yet broken, with the potential to one day be recycled, carrying forward the cycle of creation and transformation. Also how we can fall apart from being rotten within. https://youtu.be/uHpC6Vj3Reo?si=icjntP0ntVDesEBm
IT’S EASY ENOUGH to see the work of Oscar Tuazon as a vehement attack on architecture. The Paris-based artist’s two most recent shows, for e
Quote:
“Oscar Tuazon’s work grapples with architecture, not by decorating spaces but by forcing us to confront the boundaries and tensions within them. His sculptures often appear as raw, unfinished constructions, pushing back against the notion of polished, perfected spaces.”
Comment:
This quote speaks to the rugged, almost defiant spirit in Tuazon’s work. I find it compelling because it describes art as something that doesn’t just exist within a space but actively engages in a physical dialogue with it. By leaving his sculptures raw and unrefined, Tuazon presents us with an honest confrontation: structures that are unapologetically incomplete, in tension with their environment, and somehow both fragile and resilient. This approach reminds me of the beauty found in unfinished ideas, in spaces where tension is not resolved but left to exist openly. It’s a testament to the vulnerability that exists in all of us—the parts we’re still building, still reshaping, not yet polished.
I can relate to Tuazon’s vision in my own work, where I often explore themes of tension and space. I appreciate how his art invites a reflection on how we navigate boundaries, not just in architecture but in our personal lives. It makes me think of spaces where we feel unfinished, where we might resist the urge to ‘polish’ ourselves and instead embrace the raw edges and open frameworks of who we are. His work feels like a reminder that tension, rather than perfection, can be beautiful, powerful, and deeply expressive.
Question:
How do you think the concept of “unfinished” or “raw” spaces influences our perception of art and ourselves? Does leaving something incomplete or imperfect feel liberating, or do you find it unsettling? What kinds of emotions or thoughts arise when you encounter art or spaces that don’t seek to be fully resolved?
Image:
An image that encapsulates Oscar Tuazon’s exploration of structural tension is his installation “Burn the Formwork (Fire Building)” from 2017. This piece features the raw, unfinished aesthetic and the interplay between the sculpture and its environment exemplify Tuazon’s approach to engaging with space and material. You can view this work here:
This image showcases the sculpture’s rugged form and its integration into the surrounding landscape, highlighting the tension between constructed and natural elements.
