Ek-duo Exhibition

September 04, 2012

Ek-duo Exhibition

'Cosmic Fragmentation', found marine Plastic, Simon Max Bannister 2012

The living embodiment of a symbolic principle, the serpent must shed its past to move forward. Its spent skin will break apart and be assimilated by the environment. All matter came from nothing and one day shall return to nothing. We witness everyday the plastic expansion and contraction of matter all around us; life itself is the constant dual force of these two opposites. As extruders of our reality, we have manipulated the world as a reflection of ourselves, a cosmic undertaking. We are the fragments, we are the measure, we are the spirit of discovery.

____________________________________________

Exhibition Abstract

Each of us long to “shed our skin”, to be rid of the excess, the old and the past. All life must change its skin or die. By observing the snake’s transformation we get some insight into its behaviour, and thus start a process of transformation within ourselves.

The title EK-DUO ἐκδύω (Ancient Greek) has a definition of: 
1. to take off, to strip one of his garments 
2. to take off from one's self
3. to pull off the body, the clothing of the soul

This body of work is about adapting this shedding behaviour to our own culture. It is a way to detach and a way to innovate, a way to recreate new forms and ideas within culture. I have created the traces of my understanding of the "cosmic serpent", made using a variety of media with special attention on reusing discarded plastic.

Detail of 'Cosmic Fragmentation', found marine Plastic, Simon Max Bannister 2012

The shoreline is the meeting place of two worlds that feed each other. The snaking line that tells the true story of the ocean’s state. The evidence of our cumulative waste is now visible and unavoidable. Brightly coloured and fascinating in form, the pristine paradise beach we crave no longer exists, it is but a plastic dream. We can no longer ignore the pollution we are causing in our creative processes, yet we cannot stop. Dispelled from the gutters these husks of culture now drift throughout the oceans.