Indigo
Produced in collaboration with Brazilian artist Alessandra Falbo, the installation Indigo included a TV Screen connected to a Skype call with a pen at Vauxhall City Farm, where Larry the Lamb, painted blue for the occasion with non-toxic food colouring, could be seen from visitors of The Laundry Gallery in Hackney.
A framed photograph portraying a vivid blue orchid and a hand holding two lemon halves was displayed on top of the screen.
The installation was the result of a discussion about what can be considered "natural" or "artificial" to all extents. Does it depend on the context? On the exterior appearance? Is Larry the Lamb natural? And if it isn't, why? It could be because of its bright blue colour, or rather because what the viewer could perceive was only a digital representation, broadcast from miles away. Maybe even if Larry hadn't been coloured, its contextualisation in a work of art enquiring about the natural or artificial condition, could provoke in the viewer's memory an association with other popular ovine relatives of Larry's, not making it "only a lamb" in the first place.
The same concept can be applied to the subjects of the photograph. The blue orchid is clearly dyed with pigments. But is this really what makes it artificial?
The fact that they all are fundamentally a representation and not the subject itself makes the yellow lemon halves, the bright blue orchid and, by consequence, the human hand, equally un-natural even before a comparison between them.
Photos: Courtesy of Alessandra Falbo
You're welcome to visit Alessandra's website at www.alessandrafalbo.eu