Fire

In Fire, textile and the elemental come together to explore presence, absence, and transformation. The work began with body-shaped garment forms constructed from stitched cloth. These sculptural pieces echo the human silhouette, tender, vulnerable, and defined by touch. Once placed in a woodland setting, the forms meet their inevitable undoing through fire. Burning is not just destruction; it is a visceral process of returning material to ash and smoke, evoking memory, loss, and renewal while highlighting the breath, warmth, and ephemeral trace of the body.
 

Set against the stillness of the forest, the charred remnants and glowing embers create a sensory dialogue between textile, body, and nature. The work invites reflection on the thresholds between creation and decay, material and spirit, presence and disappearance, and encourages consideration of fire not simply as a force of obliteration but as an agent of transformation and poetic resonance.
 

Photographs by Michael Sides.