Nadine Marie Allan

Do You Feel it Too?

Projection mapping on string drawings

Do you feel it too? Your mental state hangs on a thread, dictated by a complex net of stories. The myths we hold onto are powerful things, they dictate our goals and mindsets. In our digital era where it is so easy to make imaginary connections fed by algorithms that seem to mock our desires, only to direct them. We have moved beyond the consumption of things, to becoming products of consumption.
Our minds are too distracted by tactics of emotional persuasion to be able to harness the intelligence, understanding, and cooperation to address our complex systemic issues.

It is time that we recognize the beasts in stories that we’ve inherited and create our own collective story. Let us move from our ingrained urge to display symbols of status through ownership and beauty as resources to be plundered. Let us change the collective myths. Let's embrace experiences of making, growing, repairing, and sharing.
2021
  • Nadine Marie Allan

Soft sculpture collage

made from natural pigment remnants saved over the past year of making things.
Meant to be interacted with and petted.
4’x6’

I struggle with my obsession to create physical objects in a world that already has too much, so I try to be as mindful as I can of the materials I choose. From the start of any project I think about its life cycle and intentionally plan what I make it out of so that I can maximize reuse. For this collage, I used old wires saved from my temporary installations, fabric scraps from my upcycling projects, and all my test papers from making botanical paints. Thinking in this way has created a kind of system in the way I make things. A thriving system needs to be reflective of our organic world. Directed yet flexible, diverse yet cohesive.
2021
  • Nadine Marie Allan

Veiled relics

Wearable soft sculpture created from melted plastic bags

Historically across many cultures, veils were worn to shield from unseen evil spirits. Plastics derived from fossil fuels are a type of veiled evil. It is an incredible material that has propelled us forward, protected our bodies, allowed us to develop very fast. But we’ve misplaced it into places it should not go. We wear it on our bodies, it washes into our soils and oceans, as women we are expected to shove it into our bodies. There is nowhere we can escape the fossilized dead that we’ve raised from deep in the Earth. I sometimes wonder about our future, when the land of the living has reached its limits. Will we still be around to hang our plastic relics on the wall to remind us of this time in history?
2021
  • Nadine Marie Allan

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