The artefact: 'Reenactment' was my contribution to the exhibition 'Mother Curator'.

Practice-based Research Question:
How can displaced industrial or architectural materials (cables) - the residues of people's inhabitation of a building, found in a tangled state and representing a moment of disorder, neglect and arrested decay and translated into new form by untangling, crafting and reshaping - hold bodily resonance outwith the original context? This sits within my research into architectures' function as ruined bodies that archive tacit knowledges, bodily memories and histories of care.

Within the curatorial framework of 'Mother Curator' how might the laborious processes of making through dematerialisation and resuspension engage with maternal labour - a body that carries, holds and sustains what is in flux? Can it become a poetic analogue for maternal foetal energy transfer as it pulls out the very systems of internal wiring from the body of a building and understands those systems a new?

Methods:
The lines of disused cables were traced into metal rod bent by hand and heat into curved templates that retained information from the original forms. Metal brazing is a technique that holds together fragments with only a fine trace of fracture, a micro-gesture of care that articulates a vulnerability. Through the process of translations from cable to drawing and drawing to metalwork, suspended in constant movement, the sculpture denies a single perspective and remains in perpetual transformation, revealing how meaning shifts through representation, acts of care and labour.

Context:
Within the context of 'Mother Curator' the hanging work 'Reenactment' occupies the gallery as bodily presence, proximate and informed by the nearby works of Rosie Morris. They read as foetal shapes in this context but without fully resolving into figuration, framing and holding other works in their open linearity as it negotiates gravity attachment and becoming. The work proposes a relationship to motherhood that is a dynamic and relational, a fragile ecology of support and balance, embodying maternal experience as movement and translation. This work aligns with embodied feminist practices and new materialism as explored in forthcoming projects with Rosie Morris.

This exhibition, curated by 4th year Fine Art student Emma Scarlett, brings together existing and new work by GSA staff and students who are mothers. Conversations around gender roles and caregiving have been ongoing for generations, but the significance of motherhood is still frequently undervalued. The exhibition aims to transform this narrative by celebrating motherhood in its fullness, its challenges, its strengths and its profound creativity. By sharing lived experiences through their work, Mother Curator hopes to create space for new perspectives.

'Reenactment' is Sara Barker's contribution to the exhibition, a sculpture made from stainless steel rod, cable and automotive paint, suspended centrally in the group show context. Disused cables were traced into metal rod bent by hand and heat into curved templates that retained information from the original forms, through a process of translations from cable to drawing and drawing to metalwork. Suspended in constant movement, the sculpture denies a single perspective and remains in perpetual transformation, revealing how meaning shifts through representation, acts of care and labour, directly drawing comparison between the energy systems of internal wiring and a maternal foetal energy transfer, as the form reads as foetal shape but without fully becoming figuration.

In this context the sculptural drawing explores how architectural remnant can be repositioned as a body and carrier, proposing a relationship to maternal experience that is held in balance, networked and transformative.

A conversation with Rosie Morris and Angela McClanahan - within the situation of the exhibition - on 'Materiality' in relation to the exhibition, and the work of Sara Barker and Rosie Morris, given their imminent collaborative project, took place on 27 February 2026.
Recorded and Transcribed.

• https://gsaexhibitions.co.uk/exhibition/...