Annabel Quick

In the old painting studios, which have legal cultural heritage status, an animation and an ecosystem are iterating.

Isinglass is a glue derived from the swim bladder of a sturgeon fish, used in art conservation for the repair of paper and canvas. Conservators, considering their alterations to artworks, aim to do nothing irreversible, knowing that their values will differ to those of the future. Water-reversible isinglass seems to adhere to their principle of ‘do no harm’. Through this microcosm of the force of cultural against environmental heritage, Liquidity questions the resurrection of artworks through the labour and bodies of others. By showing the processes that uphold their materiality, the view of artworks as singular creations is complicated.

Spending two years in the painting studios that Liquidity now inhabits brought about these questions: how many paintings developed here? How many fish implicated?

To watch the animation: https://youtu.be/7uOgMgYQy40