Soft Slough – 2014

 

Soft Slough Embroidery, hog gut, seeds, hair, feathers Variable dimensions 2014 Photo credit – Brynna Stephenson

Soft Slough
Embroidery, hog gut, seeds, hair, feathers
Variable dimensions
2014
Photo credit – Brynna Stephenson

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough (detail)

Soft Slough – Heather Komus

Considering the importance of the symbiotic bacteria in the gut and organisms like dust mites eating our dead skin, I see the body as an ecosystem with undefined boundaries. I am interested in the dead traces our bodies leave behind, like shed skin and hair and how they become dynamic sites of life for other organisms. Soft Slough explores parasitism, symbiosis and the integration of all life. It uses plant, animal and human matter with imagery referencing microscopic organisms such as plankton, dust mites, scabies mites and tardigrades. Soft Slough expresses a philosophy of life as an intricate network of exchanges and relationships.