Bog Of The Udder Plant.
Lamorva House, Falmouth, 2024.
Bog of the Udder Plant uses the bog landscape to explore gender, transformation and guardian angels using ecology, medieval symbology, and metamorphosis. The installation imagines a speculative site where the ornamental, toxic Solanum mammosum (udder plant fruit) has grown human sized. Drawing structural inspiration from a cows udder, fruit and church architecture, the enlarged organ opens up as a sacred grove. The work frames this site as a protective intervention sent by a guardian angel.
The internal ceiling piece illustrates foliage and bog creatures which surround the udder plant, with the central cow referencing the Egyptian Goddess Nut who protects souls during major transitions. Clogged Conker, the central sculpture within the plant, takes on the form of egg, urinal and chestnut shell, clogged by a worm. Installed above mirrored droplets, the disparate elements are used to symbolise transition. The grove becomes an imaginary sanctuary for everything, where discomfort becomes an enlarged, soft entity.
The installation references medieval practices to incorporate the mundus inversus- the inverted world- to question the human ego within anthropocentricism, and the indulgence of self within pleasure and guilt. The udder plant lined with necrotic teeth, bugs and reeds aim to create a visual confusion, where seemingly painful objects appear within peace- the spiked shell glows, teeth have dancing limbs, and bugs are in pearlescent costume.
