Vestige
YEAR
2025
TYPEEductional
CLIENTProfessor Carrie Hott
MEDIUMprint media + sculpture + sound engineering + exhibtion design
SKILLenvironmental system design + sound design + adobe creative suite + academic research
Exhibited in Wet Paint: USFCA’s Design and Fine Arts B.A. Thesis Exhibition at SOMArts and Southern Exposure May 2025
Vestige is a living, sculptural installation that examines the entangled relationship between care, decay, and institutional dependence. It invites viewers to confront the invisible labor of care—and the consequences of neglect—embedded within the systems we rely on.
Organic materials—fragile and responsive—serve as metaphors for human vulnerability, reflecting how survival is shaped by systemic failure and uneven access to resources. By embedding living matter directly into the work, Vestige foregrounds both the emotional and physical labor required to sustain life, while questioning the illusion of self-sufficiency.
The installation cultivates a meditative space, prompting reflection on personal and collective relationships to care, maintenance, and ecological interdependence. The sculptures—each tethered to a shared IV drip—exist in a state of visible flux, responding to their environment and to one another. A nearby table holds a CD player looping ambient soundscapes, mimicking breath and pulse, grounding the piece in the quiet rhythms of living systems.
The piece cultivates a meditative environment that encourages viewers to reflect on their own relationship to care, maintenance, and ecological interdependence. The living sculptures—connected to a shared IV drip system—exist in a state of flux, visibly responding to their environment and one another. A nearby table holds a CD player and burned ambient soundscapes that mimic breath and pulse, further grounding the piece in the rhythms of living systems.The piece cultivates a meditative environment that encourages viewers to reflect on their own relationship to care, maintenance, and ecological interdependence. The living sculptures—connected to a shared IV drip system—exist in a state of flux, visibly responding to their environment and one another. A nearby table holds a CD player and burned ambient soundscapes that mimic breath and pulse, further grounding the piece in the rhythms of living systems.
Ambient Pulse
Ambient Pulse is a collection of six evolving soundscapes, each sonically linked to the breath, condition, and vitality of a sculpture. Composed from salvaged audio—heartbeats, soil vibrations, water, breath, and whispering air—the pieces blur the boundary between the internal body and external nature. Organic and synthetic sounds interweave, evoking a fragile interdependence between body and earth, presence and absence, what is felt and what is often forgotten.
Together, these soundscapes form a living acoustic ecology—an immersive environment shaped by reciprocity, care, and vulnerability. Their shifting volumes mirror the fluctuating health of the sculptures, offering a sensory meditation on maintenance, attunement, and the radical quiet of care.
GALLERY