Microplastic pollution has been detected in 80% of tested humans. Extrapolated from its sedimentary roots, we all eventually become plastiglomerate hybrids, ingesting in drinking water and food microscopic polymers that lodge themselves among our organs. Derived from a 3D scan of the artist’s niece and her son, *mother/child v1-dv1* (2022) is Auriea Harvey’s reimagining of a pietà, referencing Michelangelo’s famous iteration found a few blocks away from the artist’s home in Rome. Capturing an intimate moment between mother and child, it modernizes the symbolic hierarchies of pigment within Christian pictorial tradition. 

A physical artifact version with NFT is available via [Bitforms Gallery](https://privateviews.artlogic.net/2/ddc8458a8d686932d19295/)

Auriea Harvey’s mother/child, is derived from a 3d scan of the artist’s niece and her son, made as they slept in the backseat of a car during a road trip in 2016. It is the artist’s contemporary version of a pietà, in the spirit of Michelangelo's famous iteration, just a few blocks from the artist’s home. The artist captures a quiet and candid moment in the day of a young mother, capturing the joy and youthful exuberance via color choices and the use of the silk-like ribbons. Though the child represented in red symbolizes the heavy burden of parenthood, the duo relax into one another in peace and equilibrium.

Interactive GLB, 3D model in HTML environment, animation, AR

About the Edition:  
This sculpture has been minted on the Ethereum Blockchain under the personal contract of Auriea Harvey. 
1 edition available for sale as NFT only.  
1 edition to be sold in combine with the physical sculpture (contact the artist for more information.)  
1 artist edition, vaulted by the artist.

mother/child v1-dv1 #1/3

Geomancer 12

Damiana and Limestone [3D NFT version]

The Daydreaming terrace series, A

3ᗫ Ɓєαυту ᑶ⍺𐌠ᥱ𝑡𝑡ᥱ

{Specimen no. 1, Homalodisca griseoargenteata}

Dance I

Spewed up along volcanic shorelines, new compositions were first identified on Kamilo Beach by the geologist Patricia Corcoran and sculptor Kelly Jazcav. Coined plastiglomerates, these fusions were initially understood as combinations of sand and plastic sediments agglutinated by magma flows. Later, they were attributed to human hands, byproducts of campfires dotted down the garbage-strewn coastline.


Quickly, a symbolic potency amalgamated around the plastiglomerate. They were described as a potential marker of the debated Anthropocene and via Jazcav made their way into museums, including the Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Natura Artis Magistra, and the Yale Peabody Museum. As readymades they attested to a new hybridity between the planet and the human, a fusion of geological processes framed by artistic tradition. Aesthetically they fascinate, bejeweled with phosphorescent artificial colors, tinged with the pathos of being a new stratigraphic signature.


As ecological anxiety climbs, a new digital art sub-genre emerges to reflect shifting sentiments. Born from the oceanic tail-ends of vaporwave and post-internet fluidity, the “plastiglomerate class” parallels its geological forebear by washing up and awaiting discovery. As a loose classification, it is typified by the intersection of softwares, blurring together 3D scanned organic matter with wholly computational materials. A mirror to tectonic processes it undulates, ripples or pulses, implying a subtle living energy.


Often resulting in .obj files, the “plastiglomerate class” seeks a reincorporation with the natural world. Birthed via an iPhone screen, as augmented realities they merge back into basalt and are subsumed by algae, completing their bit-based life cycle.

Plastiglomerate Class

Sedimentary pixels mixed with plastic matrices.

mother/child v1-dv1 #1/3

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