BDES2024 Art Processing - to Etch

to Etch alta ling 500246647 BDES2024 Art Process Group 8

Statement In this art project, I’m exploring the concepts of vulnerability and the paradox of intended care through stitching and manipulating aluminum foil. I’m intrigued by how this simple, household material can serve as a metaphor for the skin or flesh — delicate and easily marked, a collector of time. My project is loosely inspired by the work of Hannah Streefkerk, particularly her acts of stitching nature, which led me to question the unintended harm that can come from acts meant to heal or enhance.

The experience for the audience is one of both visual and conceptual tension. The aluminum foil appears to age and wear under the process, growing wrinkles and scars, just like human skin would over time. I aim to provoke thought on the duality of care and harm, questioning whether acts of repair can also be acts of damage, and if so, what that reveals about our interactions with each other and the world.

When I chose aluminum foil for my material study in the first week, I was immediately captivated by its unique properties. Although metallic, the foil is incredibly malleable due to its extreme thinness, so much so that even the slightest touch or external force can leave a lasting impression on its surface.

Freshly made, aluminum foil is perfectly smooth, but with use and time, it accumulates wrinkles until it ultimately appears worn and aged. This transformation reminds me of human aging, where skin too gathers wrinkles, as if etched by the passage of time.

In focusing on the “fragility” of aluminum foil for my project theme, I decided to introduce a subjective behaviour to interact with it: suturing. Suturing is generally used for healing and restoration, yet it’s hard to ignore that secondary harm is also inevitably inflicted when the needle pierces

the skin. As such, I chose to suture a smooth sheet of aluminum foil. All the marks and creases formed during this process are deliberately left visible on the surface, serving as a tangible representation of both secondary harm and the passage of time.

In this project, one key aspect is to document the entire process of the object’s transformation as comprehensively and objectively as possible. To achieve this, I opted for stop-motion photography for documentation. This method allows for a clear, frame-by-frame understanding of each incremental change, emphasizing the nuances and highlighting the differences when played back.

When we watch this stop-motion piece, we can feel the deliberate essence of change.

Aluminum foil, by its inherent properties, is malleable yet impressionable. It is not resilient, nor forgiving. Stitching, folding, wrinkling—all shrouded behind a sequence of frames that present an almost poetic transformation, reminiscent of skin aging or tissue scarring. Each frame not just a moment but an accumulation, evoking what we understand the experience of irreversible etching to be.