From the Ground Up
Barbican Centre, 2023
From the Ground Up is a site-responsive sculptural commission created for the Barbican Centre as part of the public programme for SUPERORGANISM. Responding directly to the Barbican’s architecture, the work explores material practices as a way of rethinking urban ecologies, alternative economies, and non-human models of collective organisation
The project draws on the logic of superorganism societies and ant architecture, using these systems as speculative frameworks for challenging extractivist approaches to construction and urban development. The Barbican’s iconic residential towers - constructed as monolithic concrete frameworks with load-bearing structures positioned around the exterior - provided a formal and conceptual reference point. In response, the work reimagines this architectural language through biodegradable, modular sculptural forms inspired by ant nests and subterranean systems
Fabricated using a plant-based bioplastic developed from recycled industrial waste, combined with soil and natural binders, the sculptures prioritise material impermanence and regeneration. Oak frames support the structures, grounding the work in both craft and ecological material cycles. Rather than asserting permanence, the materials are designed to weather, degrade, and return to the ground over time, positioning decay as an active and meaningful process
From the Ground Up extends research initiated during a Labverde scholarship residency in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil, where the artist explored ecological systems, material intelligence, and more-than-human forms of organisation. Translated into the urban context of the Barbican, the work proposes sculpture as a tool for reflecting on how cities might learn from biological systems, foregrounding care, adaptability, and coexistence within the built environment
Barbican Centre, 2023
From the Ground Up is a site-responsive sculptural commission created for the Barbican Centre as part of the public programme for SUPERORGANISM. Responding directly to the Barbican’s architecture, the work explores material practices as a way of rethinking urban ecologies, alternative economies, and non-human models of collective organisation
The project draws on the logic of superorganism societies and ant architecture, using these systems as speculative frameworks for challenging extractivist approaches to construction and urban development. The Barbican’s iconic residential towers - constructed as monolithic concrete frameworks with load-bearing structures positioned around the exterior - provided a formal and conceptual reference point. In response, the work reimagines this architectural language through biodegradable, modular sculptural forms inspired by ant nests and subterranean systems
Fabricated using a plant-based bioplastic developed from recycled industrial waste, combined with soil and natural binders, the sculptures prioritise material impermanence and regeneration. Oak frames support the structures, grounding the work in both craft and ecological material cycles. Rather than asserting permanence, the materials are designed to weather, degrade, and return to the ground over time, positioning decay as an active and meaningful process
From the Ground Up extends research initiated during a Labverde scholarship residency in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil, where the artist explored ecological systems, material intelligence, and more-than-human forms of organisation. Translated into the urban context of the Barbican, the work proposes sculpture as a tool for reflecting on how cities might learn from biological systems, foregrounding care, adaptability, and coexistence within the built environment