Mary Mattingly
Artist statement
I begin my work by doing research, drawing
sketches, and building workable sculptures
with utility and survival purposes in mind.
The sculptures are realisations of this research,
and are for use in the photography that I am
creating. In 2001, I started building Wearable
Homes and would travel to different desert
environments, to experiment living in them
for weeks at a time, bringing along little food
or water. As I improve the Wearable Homes,
I have added systems to them that purify and
store water, provide a place to sleep, monitor
the wearer’s temperature, health, and provide
floatation and storage for belongings. After a
period of continuous moving, I wanted to make
the wearable homes technologically advanced
and fit for the world’s increasing number of
mobile citizens. My work is largely narrative
and illustrative of future conditions that large
populations can and may face.
In the two series Second Nature and Time
Has Fallen Asleep people are largely mobile
in these self-contained clothing units as
they travel through each of the prevailing
climates of the near future: arctic, desert, and
waterlogged tundra, illustrating different
modes of survival.
For these two series, I travelled to places
that were and are in danger of drought, in
need of water, or that have an excess of water
due to melting glaciers or storms. I was able
to experience hardships from lack of water
and difficulties that communities face from
changing climates first hand, to study floodgates
and rising tides, and at times I was fortunate
enough to be able to help in relief efforts. With
the inclusion of sculptures, the images that I
make border fiction and reality. Depending on
the particular image and the sentiment that I
want to evoke in the viewer, I use 3-D imaging
programs and digital editing programs to
create or alter initial photographs so that they
may tell a story and suggest a feeling that
borders between a warning and hope.
