Rhian Harris-Mussi

Working primarily in sculpture and drawing, Rhian Harris-Mussi’s practice explores future archaeologies and the intersection between outer-space & earth and ecology & science-fiction. Her work focusses on the aerial view as a place where these points of intrigue converge and considers how future world building might be informed by the fragments of a collective history. Harris-Mussi is interested in how satellite photographs and Google Earth can function as time machines by revealing traces of history in the landscape, unearthing archaeological sites, predicting cartographic changes and mapping environmental trajectories.

From crop marks, crop circles, UFO landing sites and open to closed ecological systems, her work oscillates between referencing landscapes from science fiction films and the Gloucestershire countryside where she grew up. When surveyed from an aerial perspective these subjects are often made miniature, at times become flattened or abstracted and touch on the uncanny - drifting between worlds. Harris-Mussi nods to this state-change through her multidisciplinary process, often incorporating traditional furniture making techniques. Her most recent pieces use marquetry to examine the connection between the history of the aerial view and its relation to radical abstraction and science fiction - a shift or dislocation in human perspective, scale and time.