Poppy Braddy

London based conceptual artist and researcher, Poppy Braddy questions what relationships are possible when all hierarchies amongst humans and non-humans are removed.

As she envisions her practice as a way of promoting a renewed interaction in and amongst our material world, achieving ontologically equal relations and having an awareness for the responsibility of care that this places on humans is at the core of her practice.

Before joining the RCA, Poppy began her artistic studies at Central Saint Martins. She went on to complete her BA in Woven Textiles at Manchester School of Art, which included time spent in exchange studying at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Poppy has also been involved in various collaborative projects whilst at the RCA as a woven specialist. The first with Ertunç Özcan (Turkey) and MIT (USA), weaving light emitting diodes for medical applications and the second with Graphene Textile developers Nanoloom.

‘the pulsing and mesmerising will never cease to amaze,

the relations in connections make us one of the same,

you are not mine, but we are it,

what makes us Matter is living with.’

- Encounters at the Wheel, Poppy Braddy RCA MA Dissertation 2021

Can materials empathise?

With a conceptual grounding in Flat Ontological philosophies, specifically Jane Bennett’s proposal of ‘Thing Power’ and Bruno Latour’s ‘Actor Network Theory’, Poppy explores materials’ ability to ‘feel with’, to empathise with.

In time spent with often overlooked and industrial materials, Poppy re-searches, un-does and re-presents materials and their processes as she continues to build a unique Empathetic Material Library. Whether addressing the apathetic nature of manufactured concrete moulds, manipulating the static characteristics of wood or exploring the transformative possibilities of metal, Poppy presents each material exploration as a moment to alienate our interactions with and perceptions of these everyday materials.

Within this opened unfamiliar space, can empathy have the platform to be revealed both with humans and amongst the materials themselves?

How can Material Empathy help us to re-experience and re-place ourselves in and amongst our material world?

Material Empathy Library Extract (2022)