Emily Fussner

City Veins

Pigmented abaca paper pulp with copper wire, cast in asphalt cracks

My art practice gives a poetic perspective grounded in the familiar, yet often overlooked, peripheral spaces of daily life. I highlight shifting, momentary patterns of sunlight and shadow through photographs, drawings and site-specific installations. In parking lots, I fill and cast cracks with paper pulp as a gesture of mending, before removing the form to exist as sculpture that can cast shadows in new contexts. I use handmade paper in this process because it is delicate yet surprisingly resilient, like the human body. Living with a rare brittle bone condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, my body is very familiar with fracture and healing (and my work references this embodied affinity with Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold). Whether working with the light or the cracks, I explore questions of transience and presence, fragility and strength, perception and care.

Instagram: @emilyfussner