My piece was inspired by the movie Pan's labyrinth. It is one of my favorite movies because of its magical element, it's "darkness", and the fact that it is told in a POV of a child that doesn't fully grasp what is happening (and she therefore isolates herself from the reality with the fairytale like visions).
I wanted to do the mandrake root from the scene where Ophelia places the root given to her by Faun under her sick & pregnant mother's bed. The mandrake root is in a way sick & creepy because it's a piece of a dirty intertwined root that cries like a baby and reaches for you ( and Ophelia clearly agrees in the scene as she makes a face as well). But it also makes the audience feel a weird cringie maternal instinct when the baby mandrake root does a baby gurgle and later cries for help as it is burning in the flame.
I wanted to do something from this movie as it generally has many scenes where it makes the viewer extremely uncomfortable, not because anything is extremely disgusting and gruesome ( which it does have some of), but because of the inexplicable complicated emotions certain scenes make you feel.
I wanted to do the mandrake root from the scene where Ophelia places the root given to her by Faun under her sick & pregnant mother's bed. The mandrake root is in a way sick & creepy because it's a piece of a dirty intertwined root that cries like a baby and reaches for you ( and Ophelia clearly agrees in the scene as she makes a face as well). But it also makes the audience feel a weird cringie maternal instinct when the baby mandrake root does a baby gurgle and later cries for help as it is burning in the flame.
I wanted to do something from this movie as it generally has many scenes where it makes the viewer extremely uncomfortable, not because anything is extremely disgusting and gruesome ( which it does have some of), but because of the inexplicable complicated emotions certain scenes make you feel.
This is where the root gurgles at Ophelia. (notice how she isn't too happy about that)
This is my diagram of how my piece will look. I am planning to wheel throw the bowl that the root will sit in, and attach the little pieces of the root to the bowl itself so that they don't break off every time I try to lift the root out from the bowl (I want to make my root detachable) The root will also probably be gray clay because it's not as rocky as red clay, and I am thinking acrylic paint for the glaze ( with red clay dust/ dirt sprinkled on top )