Compost Crystals (2021)

…R /d )ec omp os(i)(t)ing g)y (/in (Dis )asse mbl or A dead log….

Dead logs. Their existence creates all kinds of trouble for the ecology-estranged capitalist patriarchy. They collapse neat boundaries which have kept things in its place in order and under control - what do the boundaries of a tree, its critterly inhabitants, the fungi, the lichen, the soil begin and end? Who’s who in the rot? This “dead matter” is actually a kind of heterogeneous deviant material, a soft edged transcorporeality engulfing and creating each other. The individual is actually a hybrid, a mutant, a web of soil-fungi- photosynthesizer-pollinator relations supporting co-survival. It’s ‘unhealthy body’ - dispensable, “unsightly” and routinely cleared away swells generously with life. Living and dying is knotted in regenerative and necro matters. Rot takes on a social life. of its own crossing kingdoms and temporalities. This installation comprises hybrid ’compost crystals’ - forms sculpted from scans of log fragments, forest detritus and the artist. They are cast from compost and ice which dissolve over a short time and can then be recast. This is supported by a time-lapse video of the forms melting and reforming.