Jessica Harrison RSA: ‘Working with a wide variety of materials from porcelain and paint to marble and digital collage, my practice explores the fluctuating relationship between the body and the space/things around it. How we look at, touch, perceive and navigate the world defines the shape of the body, and in turn, the shape of the body defines our interpretation of the space/things around us. As technology increasingly shapes our lives, abilities and ways of thinking, the way we behave, look at and negotiate the world is also changing. Definitions of the body are evolving, whilst still seemingly inexorably tied to traditional ideas of boundaries, gender and sexuality.
Informed by these evolving ways of looking, and by extension, evolving ways of knowing, I work with scavenged images and systems of knowledge to explore the pathways between the body, the Internet and technology, proposing re-imaginings of these definitions and relationships. Part coping mechanism, part learning strategy and part suggestion of an alternative shape to our perception of things, my practice looks to spaces between looking and touching, between the real and the virtual, between the analogue and the digital, between maker and viewer, object and image - indefinite spaces that raise questions about the value of reproduction and simulation, particularly in relation to digital technology and authenticity.
This research is process led, hinged on a fundamental fallibility of the body and types of knowledge that can be generated through mistakes and inexperience in the making, understanding and methods of sharing. Mistakes reveal gaps between knowledge and action, something that I exploit as a research tool and as an aesthetic choice, opening up a dialogue that allows a way into subjects that those with a flawless finish do not have.
In following failures and unexpected results from processes threaded with mistakes, the fallibility of the acts of making, looking and sharing can be unpicked and re-woven to generate objects that reflect on the unrelenting technological shifts taking place in the world, of which we ultimately have no control.’
