Brittni Ann Harvey argues that the idea of life after death manages to be understood only through spiritualism or a similar system that suggest it, since the concept is founded on a mythology whose objective it is surpassing the inevitability of the circle of life.

In contrast to the notion of a life after death, the artist contempers the desire to live forever, to defy death and reverse the process of aging. For this reason, the technological extension of mind and body continues to be inseparable from contemporary life, whether accessible or just the apparent, this materializes, for example, in a bionic prosthesis.

Manipulating and forming different materials, Brittni Ann Harvey approaches contradictions and bifurcations of technological advances, industrial- ization and its counterparts; the tradition of craftsmanship, the analog process of metallurgical work, the dyeing of textiles with local plants and embroidery.

In reference to MK Ultra, a military project in the United States on the control mentality of the fifties, Brittni Ann Harvey invites us to think about the possibility of a mental breakdown, exploring what happens when the artisan impacts with industry and the Armed Forces. Moises’ basket is an anchor point in the show, since it highlights the how globalization and over-commercialization in a market world cantilista manages to strip the story behind a name, making it something banal and part of an industrialized gear.

As a method of expression and exploration of these antagonistic concepts, Harvey reconstructs these baskets originally from organic materials with metal, demonstrating how the industrial prevails over the history of objects while unifying the new and the old. MK Ultra Afterlife functions as a portal to a world of observation, self reflection and growth in conjunction with technological expansion, suggesting a work in tandem with the inevitable breakthrough when considering its effects.

By resting what happens between the formal methods, the local materials, the employers and industrial media, Harvey posits a kind of life after of death whose questionable progress and cultural realities are inevitably ably finite and fluid at the same time, as we are.

× Claire Sammut