1/6 Fonte

FONTE (2024)

Part of SLA International Festival

Presented Sept 2024 in Galerie Zoom (Sète, France)

Presented Oct 2024 in Convento dos Capuchos (Lisbon, Portugal)

Research on Prosthetic Ecologies

Fonte is an utilitarian sculptural fountain composed of six modular wax vessels designed to filter and nourish water through material erosion. Each module is lined with an agar-based biomaterial that functions as an internal skin, allowing water to circulate while gradually dissolving the wax structure. As the sculpture erodes, its material decomposition contributes to the purification and enrichment of the water it carries, treating decay as an ecological function rather than a failure of form. Positioned between infrastructure and body, the work frames water purification as a situated, material process enacted through use.

Designed to drift within natural water streams, the fountain was originally conceived as a six-module system capable of operating collectively or being separated into individual units. This modular logic later evolved into fully wearable components, allowing the fountain to be activated through bodily movement. See wereable iteration 1⁄6 Fonte.

The project forms part of a broader research into prosthetic ecologies and itinerant devices for ecological maintenance, where material transformation operates as an active ecological process rather than a representational gesture. Here, sculptural systems act as temporary ecological extensions rather than fixed objects.

1⁄6 FONTE (2024)

Weraeble Iteration of Fonte

1⁄6 Fonte is a wearable water-filtering device developed as an evolution of the modular sculptural system Fonte. Conceived as a body-worn instrument, this object is constructed as a nomadic fountain that enables water filtration and nourishment to occur through human movement. As the wearer moves, the artwork activates its ecological function, positioning the body as an agent within a water ecosystem. Filtration here is not infrastructural but embodied, enacted through drifting and presence.

This project frames ecological care as a distributed, performative process. Developed as part of an ongoing research into biophilia toolkits, it explores how wearable devices can foster ecological attunement by turning mobility into maintenance and care into a lived, material practice.