SOPHIE MEI BIRKIN
AUDIO RECORDING OF TEXT
My cataracts were found glazed in whale fat beaming into the deflated skin of the bedroom
Polyurethane foam, glass, latex, polythene, acrylic, varnish, stainless steel, salt, sugar
The seabed is a site of protean transformation and the setting for the phenomenon of ‘whale fall,’ when the carcass of a whale falls to the ocean floor creating a deep-sea ecosystem. Whale fall typifies life within death, the organisms and parasites that benefit from it, pointing to the generative potential in the transformation of matter. Ambergris, a waxy residue from the digestive tract of sperm whales, is prized in the perfume industry- a matter transformed through metabolisation, something abject, at the intersection of attraction and repulsion.
