Lewis Colburn
At best, objects make unreliable tour guides. They cannot argue with the narratives we imagine for them. As a maker of sculpture, I am interested in the ways we re-interpret and re-create the past through the filter of our current experience. These re-tellings also manifest themselves as objects: the museum replica, the diorama, or the stage set. In tandem with these physical re-creations, a tremendous quantity of artifacts have now been digitized and disseminated via 3D scanning. Scanning remains at best a lossy process, though, with the results existing as a kind of dizzying virtual ‘cast hall’, echoing the endless plaster copies made from classical statuary. These objects and virtual simulacra are the jumping-off points for my projects.
Working with these historical forms draws on the contemporary sense that the pace of both progress and retrograde political motion is wildly accelerating, in tandem with a profound de-stabilization of previously monolithic forms and ideas. I re-create the sculptural forms of the past to interrogate the conditions of the present, examining the ways these artifacts reinforce and shape narratives that persist today.