Corroded Devotion reimagines a replica of a damaged relief, Virgin and Child displayed in the V&A Cast Court. The original relief was found at York Minster, a cathedral in York, a city shaped by iron mining that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution and contributed to England’s global dominance during the 18th and 19th century. The relief was vandalised in the 16th century during the English Reformation. The damaged relief was then cast in the 19th century and entered the V&A collection. Most importantly the museum chose to reproduce the damaged relief rather than restoring it to a pristine, idealised state. This became the project’s entry point for exploration.
Appadurai and Kopytoff propose that objects acquire meaning through human interaction and cultural context; they have a biography much like humans. An object is not a commodity but a thing that changes through phases of its existence1. This project aims to expand upon this and create a living object that decays and becomes worn as time passes, much like humans, pushing its biography. The replica of Virgin and Child has already gone through several events that marks its significance, from being a perfected carved out relief by a craftsman for a cathedral to being destroyed during the English reformation, to being replicated and displayed in the V&A. This project aims to reflect a living historiography through transition and transformation with his cast.
By using iron powder to the jesmonite cast, the work is able to corrode and rust like iron as time passes, this enables the cast to be evaluated through its ever-changing patina about its ongoing life. This uncertainty and constant change becomes an accepted part of the object and becomes its biography.
1 Arjun Appadurai, Igor Kopytoff ed., "The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective", (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
