It is not very often that people sit down and think of the composition of human beings from a chemical perspective. It can be hard to imagine how our species is just a combination of different elements that developed a consciousness. However, thinking about it every once in a time can be a great way to understand our own identity, especially when it differs from the norm.

Bone Drift: Chimeric Conversations is an exhibition by Helen Pynor and Lizzie Crouch in which, through a series of workshops held in Lane Cove, they encourage the exploration of the materiality of bone and how it relates to disabled identity by transforming real bones into sculptures through bone china clay making techniques. Inspired by her own experience with her own bones, having gone through hip replacement surgery due to a congenital formation, Helen got the opportunity to keep her own removed bone and work with it through bone china clay rituals. Lizzie Crouch, who has gone through the same surgery, collaborated with her to explore the politics behind keeping her own body parts after medical procedures, as well as the combination of carbon and minerals that form human beings and how our body parts affect how we perceive ourselves, especially for those of us with non-normative bones.

Bone Drift: Chimeric Conversations is currently available at the Gallery Lane Cove + Creative Studios until Early April and is soon to open at the Bankstown Arts Center on the 29th of March, with an opening ceremony that you can register for here.