ISABEL CHAMBERLAIN

ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice confronts the potential anthropogenic damage to ecosystems on a local scale. Having personally witnessed the declining ecological condition of the brook in my hometown, my sculptures explore what a future museum display might look like for my community. The work portrays a dystopian future where rising pollution levels result in a manufactured disease caused by the increasing human contamination of my environment.

This fictional future is derived from my extensive collection of microscopic imagery from the brook’s industrial remnants and its natural life. Both datasets are combined and manipulated with the assistance of AI to create a realistic and tangible depiction of a possible constructed disease caused by these manufactured byproducts. Through this process, the man-made materials are embedded into representations of my local environment, generating a dialogue between synthetic systems and materials and organic ecosystems. I developed recipes for biodegradable bioplastics to translate this digital imagery as a speculative method of future scientific documentation of the manufactured disease, imagining how it might one day be studied or displayed. Through this unfamiliar material and site-specificity, I can contemplate my immediate contributions to the climate crisis and how environmental heritage may evolve.

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isabelchamberlainart