Found Objects
“Used and discarded objects are like small ruins in motion, of which we know very little, almost nothing of their previous life. It is partly by chance that one finds or ‘chooses to find’ a second-hand object. They await in market’s stalls or charity shop shelves to be seen and given another chance, as if mirroring the rhythm and sometimes ingrate work of human memory, of recalled and forgotten things, of things that fall in and out of consciousness – fall in and out of worlds.”
Livia Marin, remainders, 2017
Second-hand objects are an important part of my artistic practice. As such, they also land and wander inside my domestic space. Usually, they are humble, forgotten, anonymous objects. Their value is not given by market trends, but rather by what I invest in them. I am their custodian; I look for them, however, since my gaze resembles that of a gatherer rather
than that of a hunter: sometimes I find them, other times, they find me. It is the nature of that type of encounter that I seek to explore in my work.
Livia Marin
My practice began in Chile working with the multiple, with the sense that the unique object is challenged by industrial modes of productions and rarely the experience of everyday life for the many. It became a fundamental
trope of my practice to estrange the multiple with repeated but different multiples: the many. In our contemporary world the immaterial or virtual object could be said to predominate, however, my central concern remains with the material object of lived experience.
Livia Marin lives and works in London. She has exhibited widely both in
her native Chile and internationally.
