Portrait of a Life-Cast of Guidon, Madagascar 2010

Editor: Here we have Fiona Pardington’s “Portrait of a Life-Cast of Guidon, Madagascar,” made in 2010 using found objects. It's so striking! The dark material and closed eyes give it a really somber, almost ghostly presence. How would you interpret this work? Curator: I see this piece through the lens of its materiality and the process of its creation. The very term "life-cast" reveals a violent act of objectification, right? How was this cast created? What labor was involved, and who benefitted? What's particularly striking is that it appropriates what were likely scientific or ethnographic methods, now used as an object that engages ideas about beauty. How does that layer impact your understanding of the piece? Editor: That’s an angle I hadn’t fully considered. Knowing it’s a "found object" too, I'm thinking about how the original purpose of the life-cast has been completely subverted and then commodified again by Pardington. Is it reclaiming agency, or further exploitation? Curator: Exactly. By bringing this object into the art world, Pardington invites us to consider its journey, and also how we consume and understand identity. Editor: So it becomes about the after-life of the materials themselves? That's really insightful. Curator: Yes. Thinking about it materially allows us to avoid essentializing notions of race, and think about the processes of production and representation, past and present. Editor: I am starting to appreciate that understanding an artwork requires knowing all of its stories of making. Curator: And unmaking! What's left out, and why. That's how it builds meaning.