Bodily
Collection:UAL Art Collection
Date: 2021
Artist: Esmeralda Momferratou (Greek)
Dimensions:
9cm x 34-40cm x 12cm
(34cm - 40 cm are the minimum-maximum distances from the beginning of the first tile to the end of the last)
Medium: Photographs on ceramic tiles, air dry clay base
Object number: UAC 1089
DescriptionMomferratou studied MA Fine Art Digital at Central Saint Martins. Bodily belongs to a series of sculptures presented along the artist’s installation Floor which is a broken floor collected from Momferratou’s late grandmother’s house in Mati (Greece) which got burned down in the 2018 Attica wildfires, some of the most devastating Greek fires in recent years. Bodily is made of some of the missing tiles of Floor that could not get puzzled back into it. The artist has placed close-up photographs of her skin on these missing pieces, which resemble the tiles’ texture and colour. The original placement of these pieces in the floor is impossible to locate, just like some of the missing information about her grandmother, whom the artist never met; her physical nuances, her scent, her voice. The body and its documentation and archiving is a recurring element in Momferratou’s work, as it is what physicalizes our existence, what makes us present in the world at this moment, what separates us from meeting our ancestors in flesh.
