re-preserve is a body of work that explores our human tendency toward the act of preservation through transmedial form and material alchemy.

Each original consumable good was 3D scanned, 3D printed and packaged in bioplastic containing aggregate fragments of the original packaging material. The new artifice representations are simultaneously vestige and simulacrum of the manufactured grains, fats, and sweets and prototype objects with novel one-of-a-kind packages.

Through 3d scanning, new skins get created: temporal physical matter transforms into a hollow, nutrient-less, seductively undulating artifice point cloud. The indigestible numerical densities exist frozen in virtual space, suspended in time, forever accessible by open-source sharing, remnant, and blueprint for future re-creation. When reformed into the physical matter as 3D printed polylactic acid “mental chew toys,” the new objects resonate as placeholders, still-life snapshots of life for contemplation. The contrast in materials, both digestible and indigestible, once wrapped in waste by-product and bioplastic elicits attention to the desire for mindful consideration of materiality. Why and how are we choosing to feed and preserve ourselves and our consumable goods? And are these feeding and nourishing practices supportive and empowering to our shared human experience, or are they undermining our safety and well-being as an equitable, globally interconnected, thriving human species?