Jackie Duvall-Smith

 

Unwritten

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This story is titled “Unwritten” because it takes an existing story and disassembles the parts, compartmentalizing the letters of the words into pods and seeds. If the viewer is interested in reading the story, they would be able to unscramble the words to recreate the story in whole. The more that the reader wishes to know, the more work he/she would need to do in order to open the pod, then open the seed, and unscramble the letters.

 

The ideas I am working with in “Unwritten” are accessibility to information and how nature interacts with the plastic world. What I find interesting about accessibility, especially in this piece, is how much work the viewer is willing to put into finding the answers to their questions. I also am curious about at which point the reader’s curiosity to know the answers would compel them to destroy the beauty of the object.

 

Part of what I am exploring in “Unwritten” is how I can rebuild a natural object (seed pod) with manmade materials, and whether I can approach the beauty of nature with my creation. I am using translucent plastic paper, leather, alphabet pasta, and silver paint to create the pods, which are then sewn with nylon filament thread. The branches are created out of wire mesh.