Artist-In Residence on a Martian Analogue
Dr Sarah FortaisMy proposal aims to share how I adapted my sculpture practice while on the Lunga 6 Analogue Space Research Mission. Primarily, I modified the traditional practice of life casting in order to use as much material extracted directly from the analogue location as possible. The reason for this was twofold: firstly, using soil and biological material extracted from the site reduced the amount of material to initially pack, and secondly, it enabled the resulting life casts to become incredibly site specific, which in turn increased their value as physical and emotional records of events. With one casting in particular, a death mask created to acknowledge the simulated death of a medical case study patient, I dealt directly with an inevitable problem with the future off-earth travel: how to acknowledge the death of and mourn loved ones in remote, resource scarce environments (both as off-earth inhabitants and as those back on earth). The process of creating death masks and post-mortem hand casts have been a common practice in a number of cultures and continuing this practice off-earth would promote a feeling of connection through familiar methods and artistic output. However, by updating this practice with new material recipes, and considering the re-purposing of the waste mould-making materials, I attempt to make this practice more sustainable and thus appropriate for off-earth and climate emergency conditions.
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