Commissioned by Pfizer through the colaboration of COW PR, this film accompanied public exhibtions of PHYSIS at 1). the Science & Industry Museum Manchester, 2). The Science Museum London and 3). City Hall Westminster, London. On all three occasions the public was invited to deconstruct the sculpture by breaking off sections of tenticles, therfore in effect, pushing this cancerous growth into remision by human endovour.
The interconnectedness of human life and the natural world is something I’ve been exploring in my work for many years; the relationship between flesh and rock, animate and inanimate, so to be commissioned by Pfizer as a part of a public awareness campaign to demonstrate the effectiveness of current advances in oncology treatments, was an interesting journey. This sculpture Physis (from the Greek verb to grow or to develop) is part human, part non-human.
Using a digitally enlarged MRI scan of a real human lung tumour as the centre of a cancerous growth, this participatory sculpture references a parasitic lung tumour with its invasive tentacles multiplying and suffocating the pure white boulder that supports it. Over the course of an exhibition audiences remove pieces of the root-like tentacles, effectively making the cancer go into remission, helping the host body breathe again.
Not only does this sculpture speak of lung cancer and the ability of humans to diminish it, but it also references our global relationship to planet Earth - I don’t think it is too hard to see the analogy of humankind’s relationship to planet Earth as cancerous.