Izzy Osborn

Artist Statement

My practice deals in the recombination of cultural waste. It is engaged intimately with current political, ecological, and cultural spheres. What is incredibly important to my practice is notion of the Anthropocene. The idea that human activity since the industrial revolution has so altered the planet, it warrants the naming of this period as a new geological epoch. The Anthropocene has a tendril like reach into all aspects of life, not just climate concerns. The goal of my practice is to depict anthropocentric activity, a reordering of symbolic spolia to clarify the existence of the Anthropocene outwith the existence of the individual. This depiction is achieved through a revaluation of anthropocentric waste. Discarded man-made materials are reworked using a CAD/CAM Laser cutter. Through this branding process, objects without any individual providence are freed from their fate. The engraved compositions I apply to these substrates gesture toward the larger political, social and cultural implications of the Anthropocene. A diverse array of signs are reassembled to comment upon topics which range from food insecurity to warfare. My nom de guerre, 20XX, represents the Anthropocene’s effective destruction of conventional conceptions of time. Contemporary anthropocentric activity will have effects which will reach far into the Earth’s future, and continually reconfigure our notion of our own history. The previous epoch lasted for 10,000 years. The Anthropocene might just last forever.