Infinite Regress
Exhibited at Craft Victoria, 2022

Infinite Regress examines cultural relationships with death and the body. For this exhibition, I placed a public call-out for responses to the question: What would you do with your body after death — if there were no laws or restrictions, a limitless budget and no environmental or socio-political concerns? Five answers have been chosen for inclusion in three beaded artworks, woven on hand-made wooden looms.

From over a hundred responses, the majority of answers included or referred to practices of burial and cremation, the choices we are often presented with through the legal course of death. The aim of this exhibition is to generate thought and conversation beyond burial and cremation: to consider how Australian laws effect our capacity to imagine possibilities for our bodies after death, and how what we desire and imagine also shapes the formation of the law.

Thanks to: Dying With Dignity Victoria, Craft Victoria, Mia Kelly, Rob McIntyre, Roslyn Orlando and everyone who answered the call-out, your answers were very much appreciated.

My dad owns an oyster farm, 2022
330mm x 205mm
Glass beads, thread, Silky Oak, brass, steel
Beading in Tone Code

Let me sink to the bottom of a creek or dam, 2022
330mm x 205mm
Glass beads, thread, Grevillea striata, brass, steel
Beading in Tone Code

I like the idea of my body going, fully and all at once, 2022
330mm x 205mm
Glass beads, palladium, 24k gold, thread, Blackwood, brass, steel
Beading in Tone Code

 

Decoded text within the beading:

I would want to be resting on top of a cloud with a single poppy on my chest. My hands resting on the poppy stalk. — Anonymous, Age 10

I would like to be created into an artificial reef or be allowed to decompose in nature. My dad owns an oyster farm and we see endless life and death regeneration. I think it would be nice to go full circle. — Anonymous

Decoded text within the beading:

[I would like my body to be turned into] an amulet or beads. Created with resin and dipped in gold. Ashes embedded [in the bead or amulet]. Buried with my partner. The amulet or beads needn’t come into possession of other people that way. — Anonymous

 

I would like my body to be let to sink to the bottom of a creek or dam. — Bella Tobin

Decoded text within the beading:

This seems so chaotic but I want my body to be thrown in a pit of lava / volcano / earth’s incinerator. Dying feels the ultimate departure of “me” from my flesh and I think properly erasing the body would feel clean, regardless of what happens to my soul. No one would have to come, I just like the idea of my body going, fully and all at once. — Grace