The phrase ‘Pull the Plug’ means to stop something from happening, allowing something to escape or fall through. A plug inside the sink gathers all the food debris so it doesn’t clog the drain. A plug in the bath allows the water to fill up so we can wash ourselves, it harbours our discarded cells of the body. A plug is the opening between the domestic space and the systems below that transports our discarded materials to other spaces, often back to the ocean. Of course, the contaminated water remnants from the drains are treated first but tiny particles of ourselves go through all the systems and filters to end up in the grander scheme of the world, in this ocean, just floating around waiting.
Part of our body becomes a body of water. This piece of an extra-large plug thinks about the larger discarded parts of our bodies especially in COVID-19 times but also what’s clogged up inside and where we end up in the grander scheme of the world. Taking on some ideas from Astrida Neimanis' book 'Bodies of Water' “Blood, bile, intracellular fluid; a small ocean swallowed, a wild wetland in our gut; rivulets forsaken making their way from our insides to out, from watery womb to watery world: we are bodies of water.”
The construction of this piece happened over the duration of a few days. I like to think of my sculpture pieces as bodies, first I make the skeleton and then build up the layers until I reach the skin. The skeleton of this piece is a cardboard held together by hot glue, quite a craft orientated piece but it ensured the plug to be lighter in weight, then using Paper Mache to build up the strength of the sculpture before adding an extremely thin layer of plaster to make it a bit more waterproof and then adding a few layers of black paint and PVA glue to seal it all in.
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