Construct

harvested plant materials (mulberry, yellow ox-eye daisy, purple clover, rose, purple coneflower, bindweed or chicory), bentonite clay, digital photographs, 2012-2015

Construct speaks to the way places, and our relationship to them, are constantly in flux. Brickell gathered plant materials from the yards of vacant houses around her neighborhood in the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. Using a mortar and pestle, she mixed the plants and bentonite clay into a malleable, poultice-like paste, which she reshaped into nails. This transformation of ordinary plant materials into an unrecognizable poultice, and then again into a new, recognizable form, explores cycles of change.