To understand the conceptual framework of this installation it is essential to unpack each material in detail. Firstly, clay, a material constituting between 20 and 50% of superficial fine material, as a metaphor for the planet Earth. Hollow vessels would be suspended and built upon each other (as described in the architectural renders) each form a possible future for our planet.  These vessels would be made of unfired clay, in their transition period from ‘wet’ to ‘leather’ hard. At this stage they would be malleable, moist and most importantly at their most fragile. The initial drying period being the most critical for clay. During this period the vessels (or planets) would be subjected to external forces and the spectator would be able to understand the effect of industrial exploitation, waste and climate change in the evolution of such material, meaning the evolution of our own soils and ecosystems. 

The first of those forces and the second material would be iron, embedded within the clay, as the clay dries the evaporating moisture would cause the iron to oxide, this oxidization staining the porous planetary body, growing across the surface of the vessel like a mould or bacteria, mimicking the way industrialized society and chemical contamination is tainting the earth. 

The second force the clay shall be subjected to is heat. A speculative approach to combat climate change and proposed in multiple literature sources is to launch large, mirrored satellites into the earth’s orbit and use those to reflect the sun’s energy back into space and away from our planet. This technocratic solution is one of many similar techno-futures that promise a future where our relationship to the planet does not have to change to achieve sustainability. Instead, our installation aims these parabolic mirrors back at the clay bodies creating hot spots on them and disrupting their critical drying period resulting in crack, crumbling and fragility. The narrative is reversed where the promise of new technology becomes the aggressor and not the saviour in our struggle against climate change. 

For the audience this installation would act as a visual puzzle, a sort of solar system of floating clay bodies to be explored, each one with their own particularities to be investigated during the process (i.e. vegetal bioma, effect of natural local minerals and rock bodies, etc). This large network would contain smaller narratives within it, rusting, drying, staining and crumbling. The observation of these various reactions builds a narrative of decay and destruction of the clay bodies. These processes of transformation that shall play out temporarily for the duration of the festival providing a space of contemplation that can be visited and revisited by the audience.