DECAY THEORY
DECAY THEORY, 2020/2022, sublimation print on polycotton, 4.5x3m (total)
Installation image: National Photography Prize 2022 at Murray Art Museum Albury, Australia, 2022.
Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch
Decay Theory Repository, 2022, single-channel video
Installation image: National Photography Prize 2022 at Murray Art Museum Albury, Australia, 2022.
Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch
DECAY THEORY, 2020/2022, sublimation print on polycotton, 4.5x3m (total)
Installation image: National Photography Prize 2022 at Murray Art Museum Albury, Australia, 2022.
Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch
The Day I Got My New Teeth, 2020, two-channel video, projected
Approx. 2x3m, 00:04.15 (looped)
Installation image: Decay Theory Repository at Galleri Rotor2, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2020.
Decay Theory Repository, 2020, single-channel video animation, 00:07:14, 4:3 ratio
Installation image: Decay Theory Repository at Galleri Rotor2, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2020.
DECAY THEORY (still), 2020, 00:01:00 (looped), single-channel video.
Decay Theory, 2019, inkjet prints on newsprint stock, enhanced matte and satin blueback paper, various dimensions.
Installation image: Gallery Entrance, Göteborg, 2019.
DECAY THEORY, 2020, inkjet textile print, aluminium, 4.5x3m (total)
Installation image: Group Show 2, Vulkano, Göteborg, 2020.
DECAY THEORY
2019-ongoing
Sublimation print on polycotton, digital images, inkjet prints, archival material, web-based archive, video work
Decay Theory is a multi-faceted body of work informed by the Swedish sugar experiments carried out between 1945-1954 at Vipeholm Hospital in southern Sweden. The mixture of archival imagery and Littlewood’s own studio photography examines new visual possibilities, where the artist creates a recontextualised archive of teeth and the mouth.
The image of the face is iconic to the Decay Theory project, standing in as a symbol for the patients at Vipeholm who could not orally consent to the treatments they were subjected to. The viewer may be unsure if the eyeless visage is blindly smiling or screaming. In the one-minute film, DECAY THEORY, the banner moves silently in the wind, attached to the Valand Academy building in the inner courtyard. The banner was physically placed back onto the institution, as a comment on the closure of art schools, due to COVID-19.
An ongoing element of the project is the Decay Theory Repository visual database. The database consists of personal items that have been donated and loaned, culminating in an online museum of teeth and the mouth. Each item has been catalogued and temporarily accessioned, allowing public access to the collection. The web-based archive outlives the physical objects, which are deaccessioned at the end of their loan period.