Project Overview
The project will respond to the local landscape, cultural history and mythology.
Utilizing locally sourced biomaterials such as animal intestine, I will construct artificial bones that mimic the natural biological process of osteogenesis. These faux artifacts will be built using textile structures as scaffolds for mineral growth. Following this process of ‘mock-ossification’, I will build text-based osteobiographies (narratives) for each object, referencing and mutating the existing stories, mythologies and histories of the Yukon.
This project reflects an interest in psychogeography (affective space) and how existing spaces can be altered through the intervention of uncanny objects abandoned in public. Those objects will be marked with identifying information that leads to a website containing semi-fictitious but almost entirely-believable ‘mutated narratives’ (a term coined by bioartist, Katherine Fargher) that offer alternate explanations for the way things are.
My research in tissue engineering informs the work in its biomimetic process: bones are over 70% hydroxylapatite crystal, formed on a partly-collagen matrix. By sculpting soft tissue and using various crystalline chemical solutions to grow hard mineral matter on the surface and insides of the structures, beautiful and unknown forms emerge. The chemicals I use and the biomaterials are naturally biodegradable and will be allowed to disintegrate into the environment, leaving nothing but their osteobiographical trace.
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