helen earl australian ceramic artist

Skin Deep

During our group artist visit to the North Head site we undertook a ghost tour where we visited the mortuary and the hospital at night. In the light of an old lamp held up by our guide medical objects glowed like ghostly visions penetrating our imaginations along with the stories told.

The white starched sheets, the white table, white objects of enamelled cast iron and images of nurses in white starched uniforms reminded us of the historic importance of the quarantine station as a medical facility.

Knowledge of the causes, methods of transmission and the treatment of infectious diseases was scant in the nineteenth century. Diagnosis and treatment of deadly diseases such as cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, measles, smallpox and the bubonic plague was based on symptoms. Along with symptoms, such as fever, diagnosis was made by observation. Changes to a person’s skin in appearance, colour and texture seem to epitomise the worst manifestations of these deadly diseases. Yet it was through the skin that early in the twentieth century inoculation began to be used to protect people from diseases such as the plague, diphtheria and smallpox.

These porcelain objects reflect upon skin and its importance to our lived bodies. Skin is the soft tissue that covers our bodies like a sheet of armour. Skin regulates temperature and protects our bodies against pathogens. In parts where the skin is thinner we see our veins underneath and when our skin dries out or is damaged it peels and sloughs off. If the skin is cut or pierced we see our blood. It is the organ that constantly reminds us how fragile and mortal we are.