One Work: Naomi Nadreau
vacuity detriment where is your head? where is your stomach?, 2023, glazed ceramics, acupuncture needles, plastic tubes, crystallized salt on metal
[Image description: A long, dark rectangular table stands at knee-height on a gray gallery floor. Blue light illuminates the surface from above while white light emanates from underneath the table. A sculpture made out of metal, ceramics, acupuncture needles, crystallized salt and plastic tubes is arranged on the table.]
Noami Nadreau’s vacuity detriment hovers at knee height in a dimly lit room. It resembles a carapace— a protective shell— black and gleaming, arranged with care on a low rectangular table. Stark white light emanates from the underside of the table.
The sculpture’s large, steely metallic base has jagged edges, cut and pressed flat like an animal hide. The surface, polished in small, looping motions, reflects a blue light hung overhead. This bright, glowing hue evokes the color of computer monitors waiting or malfunctioning, indicating that the technology needs to be reconfigured— check your power and your connections.
vacuity detriment where is your head? where is your stomach?, 2023, glazed ceramics, acupuncture needles, plastic tubes, crystallized salt on metal
[Image description: The metallic base of the sculpture stretches out atop the surface of the rectangular table. The surface of the metal is polished in looping motions and the blue light is reflected along these curving lines as neon crescents.]
Atop the steel surface, pieces of ceramics fit together along a spine, suggesting the base of a skull, a rib cage, a sternum, a pelvis. The light clay is mostly glazed a dark brown or black, in some places matte like earth and in others glistening like molten metal. Runes are revealed on the surface of the clay like a language or circuit board. Along the sides of the form, empty industrial plastic tubes emerge and disappear. Needles stand along the ridges and tubes, a nod to the artist’s mother, an acupuncturist— acupuncture, a traditional Chinese medicinal practice, can be used to treat pain or stress, and to balance a body’s life forces. Seeing the needles in the sculpture indicates that there is a liveness to this object, that it has pressure points and is flowing with energy, that it needs to rest and to heal.
vacuity detriment where is your head? where is your stomach? (detail), 2023, glazed ceramics, acupuncture needles, plastic tubes, crystallized salt on metal
[Image description: From the side, we see plastic tubes twist out from underneath the ceramic pieces. Acupuncture needles rise from the ridges of the ceramics and plastic tubes. The glazed surface of the ceramics alternates between the texture of parched earth and the gloss of molten metal.]
Toward the bottom of the sculpture, a mound of crystallized salt is heaped like an offering on the metal. Salt is used as a preservative, and in ancient Rome was a form of payment (the origins of the word ‘sal’-ary). Salt, too, connects people to the oceans through our sweat. For these and other reasons, salt has had cross-cultural uses in cleansing and purification practices for millennia, spanning places from present-day Japan to Pakistan to Greece to the Caribbean.
vacuity detriment combines this variety of spiritual, material, and technical knowledge much like the best of the science fiction genre. One such work is Parable of the Sower, a 1993 novel by Octavia Butler, which has had a resurgence of interest in recent years, in part because the dystopian world that she depicts— in climate crisis and full of sectarian violence— feels not so different from our own. The story’s protagonist, Lauren Olamina, has the power to feel the pain of others, and is able to survive her hostile world largely because of her special knowledge of plants, spirits, and human communication. Not only does she understand how to live off the land in a post-apocalyptic California, but also how to develop her spiritual beliefs and persuade others to join her in building a new world. vacuity detriment exudes a similar power, carrying ancient knowledge while portending a cyborgian future. But unlike Olamina, the work isn’t solemn. It possesses some of the camp of a Cronenberg film (The Fly, Existenz, Crimes of the Future), where science fiction elements are depicted with equal parts body horror, technological imagination, and glee.
vacuity detriment where is your head? where is your stomach? (detail), 2023, glazed ceramics, acupuncture needles, plastic tubes, crystallized salt on metal
[Image description: Closer up, we can see the ceramic pieces that are layered on top of the metal to form the spinal column of the sculpture. They are mostly glazed a dark brown or black to reveal symbols, lines and segments of the surface. Salt is piled on one end of the piece.]
The exoskeleton lays in pieces, implying a death or injury. The table could be a bed, the object laid to rest, or it could be a podium, the object presented for examination, appreciation, learning. But this object is not useless, it is simply idle. The needles and salt tell us that the work is being cared for, balanced, recharged. Someone might come along, possessing the knowledge to put it back together and its powers may return. Standing beside it, I feel at any moment that it might begin to hum, to rise, to transform.
— beck haberstroh, interdisciplinary artist and writer