Kym Burke

Thin Skin – Diaphanous Margins of Encounter

Master of Visual Arts Visual Arts Sculpture Installation Temporary Practices Materiality

This sculptural installation project engages with questions of materiality, fragility, and form. I explore sensory diadermic encounters with thin skin through sculptural processes utilising cellulose rice paper as a primary material. In the research, skin functions as a margin, a boundary that is at once containing, porous, and continually undergoing transformation. It operates as a sensory and tactile interface, a diaphanous threshold between the concept of an independent self and the world. Drawing on Buddhist teachings and a curious enquiry, the practice identifies not-knowing as a generative thin space, where rigidity softens and begins to transform. Fostering a mode of curiosity and illuminating marginal spaces that remain open to sensing and encounter.