Faculty of Art

Cross-Disciplinary Art: Life Studies

Serena Selvaggi

Dead On One's Feet

Sculpture piece created with moss and wood to decay over time representing stress taking over the human body

“I created “Dead On One’s Feet” to explore the repercussions of depression and stress that is held in the body after a long period of time. This is a topic that I have been experiencing more frequently as of with today’s generation’s drive to “keep busy”. For my sculpture, I used pieces of wood and moss to represent immunity organs in the body. The wood is life-sized with moss organs places throughout the sculpture, where the organs would usually be placed in the body. I incorporated an interactive piece of spraying the moss organs with water to express the importance of self-care. As the moss blooms, I intend to have the viewer feel the connection and the need to care for something and use those feelings to care for themselves. I am documenting the decaying process by filming a small clip of the sculpture everyday for a year and a half. My sculpture will display how neglecting self-care results in physical illnesses and self decay from an overload of depression and stress. I will begin with spraying my sculpture everyday with water for three months, every other day for three months, two times per week for three months, once a week for three months, once every two weeks for three months, once a month for three months, then I will leave the sculpture to decay on it’s own, overall a year and a half process. I predict the end result to be the sculpture covered in mold while being collapsed on the ground, allowing the audience to stand before it. I also hope that every viewer can view the sculpture at a different stage in the decaying process, meaning the project will never look the same as it decays.”