Forensic Identity

I have been interested in experimenting with gelatine bioplastic to make simple stitched clothing to reference invisibility/unseen unidentified deaths – but also decay and decomposition and the circle back to the earth/land/water.

I’m interested in the trace elements that remain within the environment… like moisture in the air that can’t be seen but we know is there.

Evaporation has for a long time fascinated me as a way to represent death.

It alludes to the spirit/soul leaving

The last moments of life and gradual disappearance

Continually present but unseen

Here but not here

We are all made up of approx. 60% water

“All of the water that is on the earth has always been here. Earth never gets water added to it–nor does water disappear from the earth. Water is constantly recycled in a process known as the hydrologic or water cycle.” (Water Cycles – UEN, 2020)

Therefore water is everyone who has gone before us.

Soil Purifies water.

https://youtu.be/P07onfZ8Ej4

I had this fantastic opportunity last week to have a curatorial session with iksvy art……

This week, we had a curatorial session with Oxford-based artist Bigtangle: Katie Taylor. She’s a sculpture and installation artist with stunning aesthetics and indigestible subjects: forensic anthropology, identity, mass graves, and unidentified bodies. Currently, she’s focusing on her Ph.D. research at @oxfordbrookes and exploring the possibility of “identifying” unknown human remains by acknowledging their existence.

Our conversation revolved around the definition of identity, legal status and rights of the decedent, death culture in the West and the East, and moral dilemmas of exhuming bodies. Katie’s work is constantly evolving around challenging matters and looking into something we “rather not think about”, especially these days. Yet, her works and the questions she asks are weaving an overpass to understand who we are now and how we identify ourselves. Ask her questions and allow yourself to ponder, “Is it our name even though many people have the same name? Is it our national insurance number or a passport number? Is it our physical appearance? Or is it something less tangible? Our lived experience or the selection of people we surround ourselves with perhaps…”

The images in the post are her experiments and tests with Muntjac deer soil samples, which was buried in her garden for about a year (the deer was roadkill that she found and he/she wasn’t harmed purposely for the sake of the experiment). If you’re interested, visit her site to explore her works and thoughts: kmtaylor.co.uk ?