In many elements of life, one thing must die for another to survive, this is an inescapable truth. I plan to make use of situations where this rule is prevalent in the natural world. This could be in the form of an animal higher in the food chain surviving by eating something lower in the food chain or even moths surviving by eating woolen jumpers.

Mould also embodies memento mori, the deterioration and reintroduction into the ecosystem of materials affected by mould is a beautiful and necessary cycle. If a tree dies mould breaks it down and returns it to the soil. The effect that mould has inspired this thought process and development. Mould is also used in the creation of medicines such as penicillin due to its ability to kill certain bacteria.

I would like to create sculptures and then cover them in something like yogurt and watch to see how they change over time. below are a couple interestingly shaped and textured objects that might have an interesting effect when lathered in yogurt and left to mould. Without having done too much experimentation yet i believe a hanging object might allow for some interesting outcomes.

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With creating hanging sculptures comes issues with insuring they are free standing and supported. I am going to take a trip to my dads workshop and create a few types of supports. I am going to begin with the old cloth wrapped in in netting for my first yogurt experiment in the house. using the spare room i am insuring that i am not exposed to too many mould spores. below on the left is how it looks on the first day. On the right is how it looks on day two.

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In the past I have spent too much time thinking, and too little time experimenting. With this work I am trying not too become too bogged down in the details and spending more time exploring the visual side of my work in an organic and not too precious fashion. Although these pieces could be loaded with conceptual meaning, at the moment i am more focused on creating something visually pleasing while including mould as my basic link to my theme of memento mori. As these experimentations progress however, I will aim to evolve the meaning behind the works.

Through my experimentation i realised that as the yogurt dries it cracks allowing the layer beneath to be visible. This has sparked an idea to create a light emiting sculpture that as the yogurt cracks, the light breaks through the surface.

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A waterproof led light would be ideal using the plastic bag filled with water showed on the right.

below is concept sketch of how this work could look. As a stondalone piece i feel it is lacking. The work would be significantly strengthened if I increased the quantity of sculptures created.

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This work would be heavily dependent on a low light exhibition space, a light sculpture involving yogurt mould cracking to reveal the light.