HARLEY KUYCK COHEN / Body Farm, 2021
PRESENTING THE EKO 8 ART PROJECTS
HARLEY KUYCK COHEN / Body Farm, 2021
mixed media
courtesy of the artist, produced in the framework of the Art & Well-being project with support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, gabion cages were kindly donated by DP Pipan
The sculptor and installation artist based in Newcastle, Kuyck Cohen has created a new installation for EKO 8. Harley Kuyck Cohen is engaged in creating visceral sculptural works using disparate materials, such as plaster, clay, and other found objects. This work titled Body Farm is presented in two gabion metal cages in a tiled room.
The intention behind the work is to reproduce the atmosphere of a body farm, a plot of land used to forensically monitor the degradation of the human body as a result of its exposure to the elements and undertaken for the purposes of research. It is a story of bodily remains and mortality.
A secondary theme is the artist's interest in an earthenware plate with the phrase "You & i are Earth, 1661" on it. This plate in the collection of the Museum of London was produced during the time of the bubonic plague. The artist recalls seeing the plate several years back, and has returned to its theme, reflecting on events of 2020, of planetary collapse and species devastation and ideas of time and mortality.
In his research for this work the artist came across the story of the catastrophic fires that historically destroyed the town of Maribor in the Middle Ages, noting there were at least six fires, the last major one being in 1700, and how repeatedly the city rebuilt itself, and re-generated. Recovered items, as if placed in a time capsule, can be observed in the cages.
A more macabre tale informs the second part of this work, the processing and analysing of human bodies, decomposing and returning to soil/to earth. Often the artist's sculptures force unlikely materials together and play out like forensic investigations, or a museum display of ancient history.
