I never realised how much reading can act as fuel for my studio time. Some days I don't even touch my laptop and I get my hands, feet and sometimes elbows covered in paint or clay. Other days are the reverse, reading papers that cross disciplines such as sociology, anthropology or political theory to better understand the role objects play in contemporary art.
To view objects as simply inert or passive would be to deny their “vibrant matter”, their “thing-power” as Jane Bennett observed. Jane Bennett is a political theorist and philosopher and her writings provide so much food for thought as I suspend glass objects or roll out clay. Combining the man-made, the found, and the natural I think about what she wrote in “The Force of Things”
I pursue this project in the hope of fostering greater recognition of the agential powers of natural and artifactual things, greater awareness of the dense web of their connections with each other and with human bodies, and, finally, a more cautious, intelligent approach to our interventions in that ecology.
― Jane Bennett
Comparing the relationship between humans and objects as a network of interconnected forces where no single entity holds complete control. What political and ethical implications could develop as we recognise the force of things? A less human-centered worldview shifting how we think about responsibility, ethics, and politics?
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