Pests

"an organism which has characteristics that are regarded by humans as injurious or unwanted"

My studio practice this semester has been particularly focussed on pests, what humans regard as a pest and why we do so. This poses the much wider question of 'what makes us Human?'. I have been researching the subject of feral children in relation to this, as scientists and psycologists have used these unique cases to argue what to the true nature of mankind may be.

Moss is considered a weed in grass lawns, and is often killed off to keep concrete area clear.

"we do not value the behavior or soul of the fly or cockroach to the same degree that we do the chimpanzee or domestic dog or cat. We human being's do have a ladder representing our judgement as to "likeability," and it is not a great surprise to learn that the species placed at the top of our ladder are those genetically most like us and those we have domesticated to behave in ways we prefer....to do so is not wrong- but it is human. That we do so merely illustrates that we design our mental universe by the use of concepts, which suggests that our first task is to develop ways to understand our own mind by understanding the concepts it employs"

-Feral Children and Clever Animals by Douglas Keith Canland.


For this project I wanted to futher explore these idea's in relation to my chosen medium; moss.
The way in which something can survive completely self-sustaining then once interferred with or transposed requires care and attention, this has been true for my experiments with moss and also the cases of feral children.

What draws me to moss as a medium is its inherent commoness, growing all over the world in both natural and urban environments. It's existence with in the urban enviroment I find particularly interesting, as city dwellers we are often detached from the natural world, when I see moss growing through cracks in the footpath or on a brick wall I am reminded if the constant battle between humans and nature. For me moss represents a small victory for the natural world amongst all of the destruction we create.

For my final work I have transplanted moss samples I have collected on to a freshly painted grey wall with in the city. Using a combination of glue and buttermilk I created the shape of a large grasping hand with the moss. I choose this shape because I wanted to reflect my idea's about the fragilty of life and our relationship to the natural world.