Nili Feferberg

The Voice-Self is a concept I have developed during writing my dissertation (awarded distinction) to raise the awareness of humans’ relationship to objects, and humans’ desire to share their experiences with not only human but also with seemingly inanimate objects.

It is an active force that when it comes into action, it makes things happen, it activates art objects’ feelings. These feelings can be experienced by the viewer.

The Voice-Self acts as a transformative agent consisting of the experiences of the body, the skin and the mind that an artist goes through, internally and/or externally, along with the artist’s urge to share his/her experiences and emotions through action. These actions result in the embedment of the Voice-Self onto the surface of an art object.

Embedment is a term coined by me, an extension of the word embedding.

SkinBody is a concept that I have been developing, it aims to string together the material ontology and the human self. The SkinBody cast sculptures that appear in this portfolio are the physical result of these ideas.

Different to traditional craft where glazes cover the clay body similar to a paint on a canvas, I am interested in diminishing the boundaries between the skin and the body, the glaze and clay, to create one material that is -

A skin and a body

A skin that is a body

A SkinBody

A skin that is a matter

A skin that matters

A skin that has a physical presence and weight in space

A skin that is not perfect, it is cracked, folded or separated

A skin that feels pain but also pleasure

A skin that is you and me

Mutual Becoming

The importance of using minerals in this body of work lies in the fact that humans are also composed of minerals, either through consuming food or through our natural body compound. This fact, I suggest, offers a space to re-think the act of making beyond poiesis which centralises the maker. It opens up a space for mutual becoming, giving a voice not only to the maker but equally to the object. 

Furthermore, minerals are part of the geology of earth which could be seen as a parallel to the geology of our body in the form of physical experience, memories and of time, in that sense this is where both of them meet.

To create my works I reverse the order of the materials qualities that are used in traditional casting.

In contrast to traditional casting, I use recycled cardboards as moulds, they are fragile, unstable, organic and temporary. However, the born mineral sculptures are solid and heavy, they embed and reveal every surface’s nuance, which are not, when fired, manipulated or refined by me. They are individuals and are not made to be repeated.

This unique casting approach enables chance and a loss of control to play an important role in the quasi freedom of the movement of the born sculptures.

Does pain relate to human experience only, or also to inorganic objects? 

“Wittgenstein attempted to free the feeling from their tie to the body-mind dichotomy theories, he suggests that the pain is ‘THIS THING’...pain can be ‘objectively observed’....he also conceives pain as autonomous in relation to organic or inorganic things, it does not matter who feels, human or object”.

This series of work has followed extensive research into the different properties of minerals, resulting in dozens of different formulas that I use in my cast sculptures. Each work is made of layers and combines one or more of the formulas to achieve a separation or a smooth flow between the layers. The wide variety within the work reflects the depth of my experiments and explores the materials expressive language and voice.

The citation is from my dissertation From the Voice-Self to the Object that Feels.

Be my playful, vibrant, energetic gravity

My balance

Keep me stable and grounded

Yes, I am talking to you, you are the only other in this room

You see me