Judith Alder

Artist

In the 21st century, when scientists can create and manipulate biological life, technology creates artificial life, inanimate objects often appear to take on a life of their own, and some things seem to be neither dead nor alive, I’m asking a fundamental question: What is Life? 
 

My recent project, Vital Signs, is informed by numerous sources from science and nature to sci-fi and speculative fiction. It takes a sideways look at where we come from, what we’re made of and where we might be headed, while considering the complex systems, networks and interconnections that form the structures of our world and of our lives. 
 

I work across a range of media and processes using drawing, collage, sculpture and moving image to make artworks which reflect my interest in our relationship with the world we live in. My work sometimes evolves over months and years, as I re-configure past work into new forms, sometimes collaborating with scientists, geologists and academics to develop the research informing the work. Artist Andy Holden posits the suggestion that “maybe there is no such thing as an inanimate object”, an idea I think about a lot.