Rosette Sablerolles
“Ecology is a reoccurring theme in my work due to my personal concern for the well-being of nature in an age where anthropocentric attitudes are dominant. I’m interested in the performativity of natural materials, Ice is a recent example of this in my work. Metal work is also prevalent and the idea of parallels between human bodies and machinery, in the sense that bones and hinges both lie in a wider system and perform the same function allowing movement. Recently my work has been centered around finding washed up objects and retelling their lost narratives, my role being caretaker. I observe and rework each piece, creating a new space and time for them to exist.”
‘Cyclical time-keeper’ 2022/23
Video and glass wax sculptures on metal plate
The sculptures you see in the video are based on objects I found by the Thames, their histories and stories are unknown and lost in the water. I create fictions for them by placing them in a new temporary context, my role being caretaker. Some of the artefacts are direct casts of the original objects and others are rendered or 3D scans, enlarged and then 3D printed. The viewer doesn’t know if they’re looking at a real or fictional artefact, which could be thought of as Fictional archeology. The video documents the sculptures melting and the new forms they take on. As the artefacts melt and disappear, so do their fictional stories and they end up where they began, as water, referencing the location they were originally found (The River Thames). Ice, a biological material, acts as a time- keeper through scientific testing which is also a key idea in this work. For example Perma- frost traps information from the epoch it was first formed in.
Photos by Jacob Sirkin