Science is increasingly focusing on whole environments – ranging from our guts to the ocean – exploring how all the parts of a system work together to function in a healthy way. Lucie Libotte’s 2014 work, Dust Matters, now on exhibit at the Science Gallery in Dublin, creates art from one of the inescapable elements of our domestic environment – dust.
In a kind of “citizen sciart” project, Libotte had a group of friends in various areas of the UK collect dust from their homes. She then fired the dust as a coating on ceramic vessels, which look strikingly varied. Says the artist, “Dust Matters’ aim is to re-evaluate this ‘dirt’, and convey the value of dust as an indicator of our environment, showing how it reflects our daily life and traces our journey through the world.”
Libotte’s work is part of an exhibition at the Science Gallery called HOME\SICK: POST-DOMESTIC BLISS, which “looks at the meanings of home, from rubbish to robots and microbes to micro-dwellings, asking whether the changing nature of home is for better or worse.”
HOME\SICK, which runs through July 17, features the work of many other artists, scientists and designers, including the microbial bellybutton stylings of Finch & Pea friends Rob Dunn and Holly Menninger of North Carolina State University.
You can get lots more information about the show at the Science Gallery website.
The Finch and Pea 