Adding The Human Aspect

To my pig trotters I wanted to add a human aspect to contrast with the animal representation. Thanks to Megan Fox I was able to get hold of a large bag of left over hair that she had been using for a previous project. I wanted something to hang out of the pig trotter, for the trotter to be holding something. Here I wanted to do a role reversal representation of the human/animal relationship. The trotter will be instead above the human aspect, holding the human aspect and in a sense in control of the human.

With the hair I decided to use a rubbing technique to band it all together. Because of the hair being cut off people it didn't have much length. The rubbing is similar to the way people backcomb their hair, it knots the hair and allows it to stick together. I also used hairspray and hair gel to bond the hair even more.

I wanted a play on words idea for this piece. Humans have named a certain hairstyle 'pigtails'. I thought that this idea would be ideal to use for this piece due to the name connection of pig, and the trotters of a pig that feature in it. I began making large strips of hair binded together so I had enough to braid the hair into a long plait. I made four plaits using different colours of hair so they would all look different to each other and to represent the different types of human hair colours.

These pigtails were then glued onto the pig trotters hanging down out of them giving the appearance of them clasping them. This is to represent the idea of the animal having control of the human. The norm of the human being above the animal has here been reversed. I wanted the hair to dangle from the trotter in the same sacrificial way that we hold the bodies and dead parts of animals in our human hands in everyday life such as eating the animals bodies. Hair is something we as humans hold as high value as a fashion trend and statement. It is something of great importance in our appearance. This is similar in the way that animals only have their bodies as high importance, such as to attract a mate.

Lastly, I covered the hair in dripping wax to connect it to the backdrop wax and the material that the trotters are made from. I wanted the whole piece to flow and have a mix of the same materials that the pieces were made from. The wax always gives the impression of an ending of time. When a candle has all burnt out the wax has melted and dripped away, the use of the candle has come to the end of its life. This pieces of hair represent this when covered in wax. They have been paused in a moment in time, a representation of death and the ending of time.

Final Piece: