Relics of Mortal Desire
My objects explore the idea that a physical thing can carry more than its visible form.
I’m drawn to votive traditions — objects made to hold a wish, a fear, a request for protection or a hope for change — and to the way those traditions can be reimagined for the present.
In Relics of Mortal Desire, I developed a series of 100 contemporary votive objects as part of the worldbuilding for an immersive theatre project The Shop for Mortals and All Fools by Vinicius Salles.
The work lived inside a fictional world rather than on a plinth: the relics were designed to feel discovered, handled and believed in, as if they already belonged to an existing ritual system.
That context became part of the work itself. I began thinking about the things we long for now that are harder to name or represent: belonging, courage, connection, purpose, protection, awe. Each relic is made around an intention and contains small material traces, what I call a "breath" — fragments of the natural world, thread, ash from written blessings or other embedded elements — so that meaning exists both on the surface and within the object itself.
The birds below belong to the same wider language. They function as small protective figures, marked with symbols, colour, copper details and hidden gestures of care.
Across the work, I’m interested in the point where sculpture becomes ritual, and where an object can feel as though it carries a history, a purpose or a quiet charge beyond what is immediately visible.
Good luck charm Bird from a private collection. Clay, copper foil, acrylic. 12cm