How did we get here?
rOYAL COLLEGE OF ART, lONDON 2018
A group exhibition curated by Benedetta D'Ettorre, How did we get here? is a personal and collective reading of humanity’s place in the present, the past and future. The exhibition narrates the story of human development through its relationship with nature and technology.
“A material exploration of our evolution as a species”
A group exhibition curated by Benedetta D'Ettorre, How did we get here? Is a personal and collective reading of humanity’s place in the present, the past and future. The exhibition narrates the story of human development through its relationship with nature and technology.
Photos documenting the process of making Rise and Turn (seen above, left, in the exhibition poster). Rise and Turn were made from supermarket burger buns and constructed around a polystyrene core. Documented every day in a contained box, the buns rapidly grew a white fluffy mould. Once the mould had reached a certain level, a dehumidifier was put in the box to suck all moisture from the atmosphere and kill the mould, resulting in the final work.
Installation view
250 x 350 x 40 cm
100kg of clay worked around a collection of polystyrene found around the streets of London. The work investigates our human need for safety and security. From our early days making settlements, we started to create storage containers for our goods, and safe boxes as homes, marking the start of property and ownership. In the orbuculum, the polystyrene installation morphs into a resemblance of ancient, ruined cities, presenting this human need to protect and contain, optimised in the grid-like structures seen throughout our cities. Shown bottom left are rocks formed in the polystyrene moulds, made of concrete, clay and soil: fresh shoots sprout from our quintessential human formations.
Table, wood-based packaging, soil, clay, computer parts, smashed tempered glass, water gel, wheat
100 x 120 x 80 cm
Seeds have dramatically affected our landscape and human experience, particularly wheat, rice and corn, shaping the life we lead and driving much of our early technologies. Yet, the extent to which wheat has shaped our existence is often forgotten. Here Wheat Man grows in uniform human form from a packaging container found in London.
Thank you to the accompanying artists Anna Grenman, Louis Schreyer, Thomas James and Titus Guido Lanteri Laura.