As the characteristics of urban life become increasingly driven by technological advances- constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of society- our relationship with permanence grows increasingly fraught. The environments and objects around us are deeply intertwined with forced obsolescence, and in this context, we can often find moments that evoke “a deep wonder and appreciation for the ongoing activities by which stability (such as it is) is maintained, the subtle arts of repair by which rich and robust lives are sustained.”¹ Through growth and decay, the city becomes a vessel through which time is collectively experienced and recorded. In response to these notions, this work explores how our bodies record the places they inhabit, registering ephemeral physical experiences that are intrinsically lost or left behind as we move throughout the urban realm.

The constant exchange between constructed environments and the entropic human body- through a daily recording of thoughts, actions, and impressions- helps us make sense of cycles of time, as Rachel Whiteread describes.² When considering ways to diarise a material response to the ideas of loss and fragmentation through making, I was drawn to the wearing down of fabrics, wooden seats and stone steps. What remains behind in these places becomes a record of individual or communal acts, imbued with time. This led me to an interest in the skin, as it absorbs information from the environment and holds this memory in the intricate organic forms and textures on its surface. Working with a material that ages at a different rhythm from its inanimate surroundings would allow me to capture both a specific moment, and the working body of an entire life, much like a written diary.

Seeking more specific methods to make these recordings, I was particularly intrigued by Cornelia Parker’s Room for Margins (1998), which re-examines the value of visual material through a careful process of repair. In this work, displaying the unseen margins of canvas visually detaches them from their original paintings, allowing them to become works in their own right.³ Here, time and decay serve as an alternative medium through which to perceive value. Inspired by this, and by the concept that the condition and visibility of objects often determine their status, I began using quick-set casting as a medium to reveal the history and intrigue of the skin.

Initially, I created instinctive fragments or plaster ‘grafts’ from the body, particularly areas where it learns on and is supported by objects in an urban setting. As suggested in The Great Repair: A Catalogue of Practices, if “repair can begin in the interstices in the existing fabric,” this became my methodology what is often lost in the generation of movement.⁴ As the liquid plaster is poured over an area of the body, it settles into the creases of a tensed elbow or the indents of a squinting temple, giving agency to the medium to determine points of interest on the skin. Through this process, I began to see plaster as a recording device, capturing a temporary position in solid form.

This first material study allowed me to engage with the process and recognise how it could preserve fragments of the body. This storytelling approach has parallels with Ostraca, ancient pieces of broken pottery inscribed with notes, letters or receipts- epigraphical remnants indicative of the society in which they were created.⁵ My project contemplates the importance of these fragments; their breaking offers an alternative vision of visibility, one that values the impermanent over the whole and permanent.

Alginate, a naturally occurring polymer found in brown seaweed, was originally used for wound healing and creating dental impressions. I chose this substance for its significance in existing repair processes and its ability to capture the intricate details of living matter. Preliminary casts of one body made in late November 2024 revealed that the off-white colour and texture of the solidified alginate impart a sense of anonymity, resonating with the margin fabrics of Cornelia Parker’s work. Rather than following the process of making a negative mould to later create a positive cast, I solidified the space just outside of the body in a single casting process. This method allowed me to bypass the intermediary steps, capturing the fleeting moment in its entirety.

Alginate was originally used in medical care and preservation, but in this work, Ostraca seeks to explore its potential to highlight the body as an entropic vessel- one that draws attention to repair through memory and time- juxtaposing permanence with fragility.

The project’s development continued with a second set of casts made during the first week of December. This phase focused on how alginate could capture both the body and the artificial supports it leaned on, such as a plastic window frame and a stone step. However, I found that this combination was less suited to the casting, and I was intrigued to discover that the plaster set much more effectively to animate, living skin than to inanimate urban materials. In the week beginning December 16th, I made a third and final set of casts, consolidating the knowledge acquired from the previous iterations. Five larger casts were created, acknowledging the greater possibility of failure at the points of setting, and emphasising the ephemerality of the subject matter.

A final decision about the representation of the project for the Final Review was made during the Christmas period, drawing on the clinical origins of alginate casting. By magnifying parts of the casts, as done in dental settings, the intricate details of the skin are revealed upon closer inspection. Best viewed through focus and enlargement, these fragmented Ostraca act as distinct records of impermanence, capturing the fleeting nature of both the body and the urban world it inhabits.

¹ Jackson, S.J., 2014. Rethinking repair. In: T. Gillespie, P.J. Boczkowski and K.A. Foot, eds. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 222. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.001.0001.

² Mikdashi, Rania. "Process, Drawing, Writing: A Diary. It’s a Nice Way of Thinking about Time Passing." Tate Etc. Issue 20 (Autumn 2010). https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-20-autumn-2010/process-drawing-writing-diary-its-nice-way-thinking-about-time-passing. [Accessed 3 January 2025].

³ Parker, C., 2023. Room for Margins. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/parker-room-for-margins-66098/8 [Accessed 4 January 2025].

⁴ Hertweck, F., Hiller, C., Hofmann, F., Krieger, M., Marić, M., Nehmer, A., Ngo, A.-L., Topalović, M. and Tümerdem, N. (eds.) (2020) The Great Repair - A Catalogue of Practices. Available at: https://archplus.net/en/archiv/english-publication/The-Great-Repair-Praktiken-der-Reparatur-A-Catalog-of-Practices/ [Accessed 3 January 2025].

⁵ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025. Fragmentary Head of a Statue of a Man, 2nd century B.C. The Met Collection. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/473396 [Accessed 4 January 2025].