The Shedding

The Shedding explores the slow accumulation of synthetic matter within bodies and environments, where the boundary between organic and synthetic begins to blur, and absorption becomes transformative.

A hybrid character awakens to a state in which the human, animal, and material begin to merge.

As it explores its own body, it encounters unfamiliar extensions and internal shifts. Plastic remains ambiguous, neither clearly friend nor foe. Liquids move through, over, and out of the body, while plastic accumulates in the surrounding space, forming an environment that both contains and extends it.

What happens when the materials we consume begin to inhabit and alter us?

The Shedding emerges from a deep unease surrounding the slow, often invisible accumulation of synthetic matter within bodies and environments. The work unfolds at a point where distinctions between organic and synthetic begin to blur—where absorption is becoming transformative.

The work originates from a visual memory of an animal standing knee-deep in water, its body partially immersed within a dense, shifting surface. In the stillness of this moment—cool, suspended, and quiet—the boundary between body and environment begins to break down, suggesting a condition in which what sustains also has the potential to transform.

At its centre is a hybrid character that awakens to a transformed state, between human, animal, and material.

The character begins to explore its own body, encountering unfamiliar textures and extensions. It does not fully recognise what it has become, nor how to categorise the materials it carries. Plastic remains ambiguous, neither clearly friend nor foe. As the body moves, it begins to register further shifts from within, suggesting processes that are not yet fully understood. It lingers in this uncertainty, unable to determine whether what it hosts is a threat or a form of adaptation.

Material processes unfold across and around the body. Liquids move through, over, and out of it—viscous, reflective, and difficult to locate as either internal or external. Plastic accumulates in the surrounding space, forming a shifting environment that both contains and extends the body. These elements do not remain separate but operate in continuity, suggesting a condition in which boundaries between inside and outside become increasingly unstable.

Filmed in the Qinan Drying Stove at the Royal Gunpowder Mills, a former industrial site, The Shedding unfolds within an architecture marked by extraction, abandonment, and visible decay. The deteriorating structure provides a material counterpoint to environmental conditions that are often less immediately perceptible—unfolding gradually, unevenly, and at different scales.

The Shedding holds a space in which transformation is neither fully visible nor fully understood, and where the body exists in ongoing relation to the materials it cannot fully separate from.

Credits

Art Direction, Costume & Performance: Katrin Spranger, 2026
Movement Consultancy: Sarah Warsop, Isobelle Palmer
Costume and Installation Assistance: Louise Borneman, Hyoeeun Shim
Film and Editing: Louis Thornton, Film and Editing Assistant: Zac Davis
Sound: Cylinder Five – Chris Zabriskie
Materials: Plastic bottles donated by Greenseas Trust