Damage and restoration (2024)

Sculptural instalation / concrete, asphalt, polyester, motors, plaster boards / 340x180x43cm

The project originates from my research into damage and restoration as natural and ontological forces that shape the world. It proposes an understanding of the present state of the world as the result of an ongoing entanglement between processes of damage and restoration. For this project, I employed damage as an artistic process, transforming parts of machines into animal bodies.

A two-part sculpture presenting a wrecked wall was originally installed at the site where a real wall once separated the space. This transitional state emerged as an attempt to reverse time, stopping at the moment when the original wall was undergoing demolition. Within its interior, I embedded an archaeological excavation that appeared to contain fossils buried in sedimentary rock, although the fossils were replaced by engine components and industrial materials. This assemblage emerged as a way of transforming industrial objects and materials according to the principles of biological fossilization. Through this process, the engine parts became damaged to the point of irreversibility, rendering them analogous to animal bones preserved through fossilization in sedimentary rock.

In this way, the project explored how nature might transform industry, rather than industry transforming nature.