This work is a captured breath and exhalation formed from the artists breath in fired black clay slip and muslin. 

“Hockings Captured Breath in clay breaths could speak to the interconnection between humans, animals, plants, fungi. But to do that I think would miss an opportunity to speak to the concept of dark ecology. Shrouded in black earthenware, these exhaled breaths are materially distant from the ‘lightness’ often connected to breath. Hocking makes us aware of the corporeality of our breath- the physical act of expelling this air from our bodies, and through capturing it within these strange forms, she makes us realise that the air was never really ours anyway. The breath is abject. ‘Nothing remains of you except this floating absence’ — Marguerite Duras  Excerpt Essay by Adele Sliuzas

Image Credit Sam Roberts Photography

Life Within Life, fired black earthenware clay, copper electroplated seaweed root, 2023, dimensions variable