j.Doe

Photo Credit: Andrew Tetzlaff

J. Doe is an unfolding artwork which investigates the unknown or anonymous body through the lens of forensic science. It is a metaphor for loss and trauma and a love letter to the missing. The work acknowledges the complexity of identity by questioning whether it is possible for an individual to ever really be represented as the sum of parts— as a collection of bodily components, artefacts and personal statements. In this work an unnamed artist buries and then later unearths a set of their own biological materials and personal effects. Across the exhibition period these extracted specimens—fingernails, hair, clothing, shoes, etc.—are frozen (to kill any pathogens and pests), sorted and then brought piece by piece into the gallery in accordance with museological and forensic practices. These fragments are presented alongside written letters as a mournful offering and an attempt to reconstruct both the identity and the bodily form of J. Doe. This work questions the relationship between both personal and biological artefacts and the implicit history each holds even after they have been recovered. The permeance of these artefacts undergoes a transformation that brings together the part and the whole, (re)generating and (re)identifying the agent body through a cumulative process. In addition to its morbid theme, there is another unsettling element to this work. As an Australian First Nations artist living with a disability, Anonymous’ J. Doe also implicitly recognises the long histories of Indigenous and disabled bodies being stripped of their agency, culture and identity through forensic science and historic museological practices. 

'The video became an exercise in process as well as an experiment itself. All of us involved had never done anything like this before and I wanted to create a feeling of 'real life' to the whole process with minimal editing if possible. Before the two participants began, I gave them very little instruction as to what to do and it was left up to them as to how to navigate this quite complex and at times intense task. It is interesting to see the struggle with both myself directing the camera and the participants as we endured this hour-long process and how over that time we began to find a rhythm amongst the uncertainty we would encounter. The video is interspersed with both moments of humour as well as moments of the mundane and together these provide a contrast to what is quite an intense exercise and subject matter. I would like to thank CG, JC and NM for their invaluable contribution.' (Anonymous) 

Materials : Pieces of the artists body, clothing and personal affects of the artist, letter from the artist, digital video 

J.Doe was commissioned by RMIT Gallery as part of the Agent Bodies Exhibition 2022

https://rmitgallery.com/exhibitions/agent-bodies/