Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Kathy Ludwig created a collection of “performative jewellery” that explores the way jewellery interacts with the body, in a way that highlights certain values.
“Hosting Parasites” earned Ludwig a first class honours degree and can now be seen at Galerie BSL in Paris.
Ludwig explains that while her creations are intruiging and attractive, they may also be repulsive and raise various questions, as a “living sculpture is formed from their unison”.
Hosting Parasites consists of three smoked oak cabinets of curiosities. Each cabinet contains latex, ivory, silver, fabric and porcelain objects for experimentation. These objects support or inhabit the user’s body in a given way, leaving an imprint or fusing with it. The idea is that the actual human flesh becomes the "sublimated showpiece”.
With this project Ludwig attempts to examine the parasitic or symbiotic character of any relationship.
In the first cabinet four pieces of white porcelain are found. They attach to a part of the body with a silver thread that then makes it leave an imprint on the skin, almost like a fossil.
Reminiscent of a vampire-like relationship, the second cabinet contains “latex leeches” that leave a red mark on the body.
The third cabinet contains three skin-like pieces that, when at work, imitate parasitic bodies by blending in with the rest of the user’s hand.
