After creating a variety of drawings, I felt as though I needed to move on and experiment with alternative media for a smoother transition into my garment design. My problem was that I felt as though I hadn’t done enough organ studies, which is where I took inspiration from the artist Camila Carlow.
I was instantly drawn to Camila’s artwork when I saw in on Med in Art. Using nature as your media is quite unusual and rare itself, but to be creating organs out of it; I knew my topic of function would fit perfectly.
This is a quote from Camila herself:
‘The most fascinating and intricate of biological structures, yet we rarely pay heed to the organs inside our body. Regardless of whether we fill ourselves with toxins or nourishing food, whether we exercise or not – our organs sustain us, working away effortlessly and unnoticed.
In a similar way, plants flourishing in the urban environment are a testament to nature’s indifference to our goings-on. They grow out of the sides of buildings, in brick walls and between the cracks in concrete, despite the traffic and pollution.’
This quote really resonates with my theme of function, especially the part which talks about how our organs soldier on despite the way we treat them. Our cells may have particular ph and temperatures to stick to and any deviation can cause disruption, however, our body as a whole can take a lot of what we throw at it, but I think we overestimate this and that’s when things start to malfunction.
An example of this is stress. When you’re on holiday, your body is most likely to be in it’s thrive state so it can handle a little more alcohol or the indulgent foods you wouldn’t normally eat. However, when you are back living your usual life and you are constantly being hit with micro stress doses*, unfortunately, the food you consume will be one of them.
*What is a Micro Stress Dose?
‘We’re exposed to dozens of these every day and they all add up. For example, your alarms blares (MSD1), you check your Insta feed and see a colleague sunning themselves on a Greek island (MSD 2), you check the news and see some distressing images (MSD 3), you feel a bit groggy after last night’s late pizza and half a bottle of wine and reach for the paracetamol (MSD 4) and before you know it, you’ve had 20 micro-stress doses before breakfast. All these MSDs take us closer to our personal stress threshold, where body and mind suffer.’ – Dr Rangen Chatterjee
WOODHALL, V (2019) 11 health resolutions your GP wants you to keep. Available from: https://www.getthegloss.com/article/11-tips-to-manage-stress-that-your-gp-wants-you-to-know Accessed: 25/04/2019
A way of combatting stress is through nature. Nature has an impact on our wellbeing in a number of ways including healing and restoring mental health; soothing pain; promoting a greater sense of community and relieving nature deprivation from the overuse of screens.
There is more information on this website that talks about how and what nature can do to your health and wellbeing with links to real life studies to show the evidence that it works:
TAKINGCHARGE (c2016) How does nature impact our wellbeing? Available from: https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/how-does-nature-impact-our-wellbeing Accessed: 25/04/2019
I have recently been reading a book called ‘The Stress Solution’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee, in which he talks about combatting stress through using nature. This is why this artwork really resonates with me because there is scientific evidence to show the effects of nature deprivation, which makes the artwork I produce have a deeper level of concept.
As far as I know, Camila’s work shows functioning organs made from fresh flowers and seeing as though my project is focusing more on malfunction, I was inspired to make organs that were malfunctioning, out of mostly dying flowers.
My first attempt was making some lungs using some dried up twigs with dead brown leaves on them, as they reminded me of the alveoli found in someone with emphysema.
I originally only created on side of the lungs as I had trouble assembling it as the twigs would have fallen apart if I hadn’t stood them up using some foam board and toothpicks. I then added the ‘trachea’ to make the image more recognisable as a pair of lungs. I think they are recognisable, however since I duplicated the other side in photoshop, I realised that it wasn’t accurate as the lungs have different shapes. I easily corrected it and feel as though this study created an alternative approach to malfunctioning lungs. Even though I couldn’t depict all the conditions related to the lungs, I like the alternative representation of how it shows nature deprivation. The lungs look as though they are drying up and dying, which relates to what indoor air pollution is doing to our lungs. By opening up windows and letting nature inside you can decrease stale air, damp, mould and CO2 levels – all of which contribute to allergic reactions and lung conditions like asthma.
VELUX (c2019) The real-life price of poor indoor air quality. Available from: https://www.velux.com/indoorgeneration/the-real-life-price-of-poor-indoor-air Accessed: 25/04/2019
I then developed this study by situating it inside the ribcage that I painted earlier on in the project.
As I have said before, I have decided to situate my malfunctioning organs inside the accompanying skeletal part, as it shows that malfunctioning organs can affect surrounding body systems. An example of this is when the bronchi of the lung airways become inflamed, resulting in bronchitis, this can cause the symptom of pain in your ribcage.
My favourite of the trio of malfunctioning floral organs is of the uterus.
Before I went and collected the flowers, I did some research on the disorders relating to the uterus, the problems they cause and their symptoms. Bearing this in mind, when I saw one flourishing daffodil next to a dying one, I thought it was perfect in displaying a damaged fallopian tube.
From what I know, most of the time only one tube will be affected, however, it depends on what is causing the blockage (endometriosis) or scarring from inflammation (PID), which is why I chose to represent one tube as a wilting flower and one still working.
In some ways, this image could be quite distressing for some people, as it’s a reality for some women, however, you could choose to see it in a different light. Maybe one of the fallopian tubes and ovaries is damaged, but there’s still one that works. Something I would like to show in my work is a malfunction, but also showing that it’s not the end of the world and that many of these conditions can be improved, if not cured. I want people to realise that they shouldn’t have to ‘put up’ with symptoms, but also to realise in most cases, that some effort or change is required.
My final floral organ was of the brain. It’s probably my least favourite, as to me personally it didn’t convey as much malfunction as the others and to be honest, I don’t know if it even looks like a brain.
The malfunction I tried to show in this was the fact that some of the stems were red, which reminded me of a picture I’d seen, that was showing death in small areas of the brain tissue, in dementia.
I still carried on in developing the image and situating it inside of the skull, which I think made it look more like a brain. The brain looks quite small in this photoshop, however, I suppose it all adds to the idea of malfunction in the human body.
If I were to continue down this route of creating some sort of imagery around organs made from organic material, I think I would explore how different foods affect the functions of these organs. This would be relevant to my progression in becoming a nutritional therapist, in which the idea of how food affects our function will play a very strong role.
Viktoria Collins UAL FMP 