THE ARCHIVE

Series of lightbox sculptures and digital pigment prints on archival paper

The Archive series investigates medical collections—a vast inventory of anatomical models and prosthetic devices—collected for their historical value. Each artifact conjures the human desire to explore the limits of the body by way of technology.

Isomorphic Extension I (diptych) conjures the way in which the brain constructs an image of the body and the perceptual phenomena of phantoms. Individuals who have lost a limb almost without exception experience the phenomenon of the phantom limb: the vivid impression that the missing limb is present. In a macabre reversal of the missing limb phenomena, two, large scale photographs portray two prostheses, which linger below the invisible, or phantom body. A disarticulated human form is implied through an amusingly unmatched pair of prosthetic legs from different periods, one gendered male the other female. This diptych strategically places them in a configuration that suggests self-organization—or autopoesis—and ambulation.

The Conversation, photographed in storage at the Mütter Museum, College of Physicians in Philadelphia, portrays skeletons who appear in animated suspension, poised for conversation.