The Fiction of Permanence: Material Guides:

Accessibility and open-circulation are important elements of all projects undertaken by the Centre for Sustainable Curating and the Synthetic Collective. But we also love aesthetically pleasing objects and finding sustainable methods for information circulation. With Objects as Temporal Entities we also wanted to find a way to link Arles, France to the Great Lakes region of North America, where we all live, study, and work. Out of this came The Fiction of Permanenc, an expandable set of materials guides, each dedicated to understanding the degradation of a single material through a case study (either from France or the Great Lakes region). The guides are available as both digital files and risograph prints (an eco-friendly form of printing), and have been designed using a palette derived from the PLA bioplastic tiles at Atelier LUMA. 

This is a major outcome of the project, which will continue to develop over the next year. The first phase includes four materials:

  • Potatoes (fruits and vegetables in the gallery)
  • Felt
  • Concrete
  • PLA Bioplastics (will be completed in December)

Next in line are guides for each of the materials in the Potatotemporal section of the project (see below), including: salt, clay, mycelium, wood, as well as latex, and PVC. Once the materials directly connected to our time in residence at Atelier LUMA are complete, the guides will be produced at a slower pace, as time allows.

Each guide explores one material that was central to our time in Arles, France or to our work in the Great Lakes Region. Four guides have been completed: 

Cover from Potato Material Guide. A Sprouted potato hovers at the top left of the page above large text on the bottom left that reads: "POTATO Objects as Temporal Entities: The Fiction of Permanence".

Potato

Cover from Felt Material Guide. A moth hovers at the top right of the page above large text on the bottom left that reads: "FELT Objects as Temporal Entities: The Fiction of Permanence".

Felt

Cover from Potato Material Guide. A Sprouted potato hovers at the top left of the page above large text on the bottom left that reads: "POTATO Objects as Temporal Entities: The Fiction of Permanence".

Concrete

Cover from Felt Material Guide. A moth hovers at the top right of the page above large text on the bottom left that reads: "FELT Objects as Temporal Entities: The Fiction of Permanence".

Bioplastics