Image by Julia Schmitz
Postmortem Recordings is a multi-media installation exploring the ways in which humans regard dead bodies, involving real times sounds of a decomposing animal body. The exhibition was part Residual Matters, the graduation show of the MA Visual Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Departing from Julia Kristeva’s abjection theory and artists that worked with the abject (Kristeva, 1982; Hirst, 1991; Smith, 1987; French&Mottershead, 2019), Mahín questioned How can abjection be turned into identification?
The animal’s body was a squirrel, ethically sourced through a taxidermist, who found the squirrel at the side of the road. It died from a roadkill.
The sounds of decomposition was recorded for 5 days, and edited in such a way that it was still real-time and depicted a similar process of 5 days into 6 minutes.