The prototype sculptures Connected/ Breathe-In/ Becoming Probiotic/ Becoming Plastic are on display as part of the Wander_Land Exhibition, at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall. Wander_Land is an exhibition of new sculpture exploring landscape and walking (and breathing) by members of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
Audience Responses at Tremenheere Sculpture Gallery
“Jane Fox is attracted to an elemental engagement with matter. Her sculpture addresses the organic in more than shape…so we naturally turn to the facility in our thought and language to explain it through similarities – with tree-life, bone or stone; that is, with the matter upon which existence is built, grows and advances.”
Martin Holman takes a tour of Wander_Land, Art historian and writer. ‘Do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement.’ – Friedrich Nietszche.
Jane Fox uses a process of fermentation to grow the layers of probiotic microbial cellulose for the sculptures. The cellulose used for these sculptures ranges between 12-15 months and therefore, each sculpture is displaying a variety of textural characteristics and changes.
The cellulose is visceral and moist. On removal from the fermentation culture it starts to change and so, with exposure to air and drying it becomes skin-like; translucent, taut, wrinkled, blistered, fragile or leather-like.
The Connected sculptures are evocative of human, animal and insect fragments; and microscopic forms and are asking us to consider the inter-connectedness of several different life-forms. The sculptures are bony, reminiscent of a ribcage, a pelvic girdle, a ball and socket joint and cross-species configurations.
Connected explores an intermingling of micro-plastics and microbial life across species. They are questioning do we absorb nano particles of plastics as innocently as beneficial spores and microbes?
The Future Materials Bank, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht has accepted the probiotic microbial cellulose into their library of sustainable materials. This is a global achive of natural materials for artists, designers and makers.
https://www.futurematerialsbank.com/material/scoby-3/
Jane Fox has an article published in Planet – The Welsh Internationalist magazine/ Welsh and International politics and culture called, ‘Becoming Probiotic – Health, ecology and our second brain’. ISSN 0048-4288. This 2023 edition marks the NHS at 75.
https://www.planetmagazine.org.uk/planet-online/251/jane-fox
https://www.exploreartproject.com/explore-art/wander_land-exhibtion-july2023
https://janefoxartist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Wander_Land-Your-Guide-to-Wander-Land.pdf
https://janefoxartist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Martin-Holman.pdf