After Humans: Transmission Reverberation
After Humans: A Meditative Pause
After Humans: Add Another Plate To The Table
After Humans
What happens to a human-inhabited space when the humans have left the room; after a moment, a few hours, or a few years have passed? What becomes of the objects left behind as they continue to exist for a while - do they take on new meanings, new purposes, or are they now meaningless, simply left to decay over time? Do the spaces take on new ownership, when plants and animals gain more access to these enclosed environments? What happens to the sounds of these very human spaces, with no humans and their artifacts to make a noise…
The series ‘After Humans’ is an exploration of the fleeting nature of existence, with a spotlight on human belongings and the passing of time.
In this series of works, viewers are faced with closed boxes with handles, knobs, buttons or wheels on the outside. In these boxes are imagined worlds, each with a different scene set with lights and sounds, where an unspecified amount of time has passed after the humans have left. The dimensions, shapes, themes and atmosphere are unique to each box.
The viewer is invited to open windows, and doors and look in through these ‘peepholes’ into an environment from specific angles.
Each space has been choreographed carefully with handmade objects, furniture, plants and animals, using scratch-building miniature techniques using various materials, as well as incorporating a very small number of found objects.
By turning a handle or pressing a lever, animal movement enters the scene, and the rooms comes to life with a surprise. The animals are ghost-like illustrations, made of materials portraying their impermanence in these spaces. The plants are made of paper, to allow light to pass through and imply their fragility. The whole composition and its elements are dream-like – nothing is quite real or realistic, but everything is recognisable.
The viewers are restricted as to how much they can see due to the small openings – these are not spaces for them- though they are allowed enough proximity to briefly become part of this world, and momentarily forget the one they have left outside.
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