[ISEA98] Panel: Nelia Justo – Art Practice

Panel Statement

Panel: Work

Throughout the past six years my sculptural work has embodied abstract notions of technology by recirculating, technological objects and methodologies within the realm of the biological and decorative. Historical and cultural sources, materials employed and forms on which the work are based, are all integral to one another.

Recent work has explored the hybridisation between formal iconography of dress (as expressed in a range of traditional cultures) and woven textiles with contemporary iconography and functions of electronic media. A key metaphor linking these two divergent areas being the emblematic use of decorative inscription, of rank or gender in the former, juxtaposed with the caricatural, symbolic structures of electronic media. This metaphor has continued in most current work, historically relating the trade of goods between Europe and Asia and its subsequent effects on cultural and technological development.

I am also curious in exploring apparent taboos which often prevent technologically based arts forms from addressing cultural, spiritual or ritual aspects of the social world. The conventional orientation of technologically based work, in its critique of the body for instance, often refers to it as a set of physical limitations to be extended by prosthetic devices and VR systems. My work however, regards the body as an expressive, social being existing within a culture, within a history.

  • Nelia Justo (Australia), Artist, Sydney.