Sadie Tankard Bowkett - BA (Hons) Fine Art
Topography of Skin
Sadie’s practice centres around health and illness. In particular, she is concerned with the western medical gaze and the colonisation of the body, a process that reduces the corporeal to a pathology of space. Manifesting through the categorisation and systemisation of disease, treatment and care, the commodified body is alienated both individually and societally. The effects of this hegemonic disconnection become amplified in ‘othered’ or already marginalised groups.
Central to her work is the concept of skin as a threshold between internal and external terrains. The body’s largest organ, the integument functions as a visible indicator of unseen physiognomic and emotional malaise. Drawing parallels between human skin and the surface of the earth, both of which bear traces of what lies beneath, the work explores aerial archaeology and mapping to investigate how historical palimpsests - for example buried archaeological sites - leave traces on the earth’s surface. Similarly, Sadie considers her own allergic reactions and endemic skin conditions as palimpsests of bodily memory, externalising a deeper internal history.
Skin Mapping installation uses cut out motifs informed by life-long medical intervention and allergy testing. Filled with light and projected onto floor plans of hospitals, they appear like tiny drawings of organisms or topological map markings or even celestial points. By exploring these networks, the work aims to liberate the experience of the sick body, moving it beyond institutional spaces and toward more holistic, empathetic frameworks of nurture and care. These processes inform a practice that interrogates the interconnectedness of systems - technological, natural, scientific, and corporeal - as a method of resisting oppressive models of care.
