A painful shedding of the skin. A death cloth solidified on my head as a void cast describing absence and presence simultaneously. Material defines the procedure, allowing gravity to do its work and reform fabric’s fluid shape around my face. Since plaster sets through an exothermic reaction, a physical exchange of thermal properties takes place between skin and the artefact throughout the curing process. Cast is representative of a vague and unclear identity through the enclosed void, similarly of the way that a cadaver’s face is covered during dissection in order to protect the identity of the deceased person.

Referring to the burial practices of ancient Greece, under the cloth ‘Charon’s obol’ (in this case a one-pound coin) marks the location of my lips. Placed on the mouth of a deceased individual before entombment, it is the payment or bribe for Charon, the ferryman who transfers souls across the river that separates the worlds of the living and dead. Purpose of coin besides being a ‘toll’ for the journey to afterlife, is to seal mouth because the dead are not allowed to speak. Suggestive of the mute creator, after exfoliating the hardened cast off my head, skin and hair residues also remain in the empty space as personal signs.