Mercedes-Benz Financial Services

Melissa Tran

I Will Not Use Violence

two No. 2 yellow pencils, three custom-built coffins, handheld sharpener, 2013, variable dimensions

The pencil, an iconic but extinct tool, is encased in a container made to size, like a coffin. A second coffin holds the remains of a second pencil that has been completely shaved down, with the excess shavings spilling out—the coffin unable to contain in the pencil’s original volume. The bodies of the two once-identical pencils are left to rest in states of wholeness and obliteration. The clear tops to these containers highlight the objects in an almost specimen-like manner, keeping them in a state of stasis as a body on view—dead but not yet gone.

 

Melissa Tran - I Will Not Use Violence

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