Summer Brown, Student Work. Response to Touch Chapter, A Natural History of the Senses.

Life After Death

Cotton dyed and stitched with natural elements.

11" x 8"

“Death would happen cell by cell, receptor by receptor; each of life’s minute sensations would be torched. Today people who have somehow survived accidental burning come to the burn units of Metropolitan hospitals to be redressed. If their burns are too deep for the body to repair by itself, they receive temporary coverings (cadaver skin, pigskin, lubricated gauze) until doctors can begin grafting skin from other body parts. Our skin makes up about 16% of our body weight (about 6 pounds), and stretches two square yards, but if too much of the body is burned there isn't enough skin graft. . . .  covered the boys with cadaver skin and artificial membrane, removed small squares of skin from their armpits and cultured them into large sheets of skin, which they grafted on gradually over a five month period.”- Excerpt from Diane Ackerman's Natural History of Senses [section]: The Feeling Bubble


Artist Statement

This piece is made from naturally dyed cotton using onion and red cabbage skins to further emphasize the use of alternative membranes in the body's healing process. The edges of the fabric were then burned, expressing the death and decomposition of the skin, and with it the loss of sensation. The thin, inner layers of the maracuyá fruit as well as onion were peeled, soaked and sewn into the dyed cotton. Their fragility and thin state represent the meticulous nature of the process of renewal. Deep crimson veins, made of tamarind pods, circulate the newly incorporated skin, bringing circulation and existence to this foreign skin. The white ink and glue around the veins symbolize white blood cells - our bodies natural disease fighters, fully encompassing this understanding of life after death and the body's resilience.