Juliana Cerqueira Leite
Urn 9, 2022Dental plaster, fiber glass, aluminum, steel, pigment, glass base, live plants and organic substrate90 × 90 × 50 cm (35 7⁄16 × 35 7⁄16 × 19 11⁄16 inches)
Culminating from her research on ancient Amazonian funerary urns discovered in contemporary Brazil, Urn is a series of human-scaled vessels created through a process of casting of the artist’s body. The anthropomorphism of the hydrocal sculptures relates to the primary objects of the artist’s study which dually functioned as containers and portals meant to hold the body of the deceased while processing its loss, morphing into the afterlife. Like these urns, Cerqueira’s sculptures are tightly bound between preservation and transmutation.
