Jullian Young

MEMORY VESSELS, 2019
3D printed and wheel-thrown porcelain, forms derived from transcoded bird calls of endangered species, limited editions, dimensions variable

“Memory Vessels” seek to preserve the lives of endangered bird species that may not exist in the near future. These vessels are created by taking the bird call of a critically endangered bird species and transforming that sound into a visual representation, and generated into a 3D model printed in porcelain.

With the transformation of bird songs into three-dimensional physical objects, “Memory Vessels” aims to seal the essence of endangered birds into clay as their own heirlooms to be absorbed into humankind’s generational memory sharing.

Memory is at the root of our existence as life forms on this planet. The earth remembers its rhythms season after season, animals remember their ancestral homes with every yearly migration, and our species carries memories throughout centuries with generational inheritance, physical and metaphysical alike. These may come in the form of oral tradition, written word, or the passing on of heirlooms. Our species is not special in the sharing of memories, only the ways in which we do it. Our species, however, is unique in that we are rapidly eradicating other species from the planet we all share. Our habits are responsible for the record number of extinctions that have already happened, and those to come.

- Jullian Young

about the artist

Networks exist in many facets of living and non-living systems. As a digital artist, I am asked to consider the theoretical side of networks, and how they function to further the creation of my art as well as the sharing of it. In modernity, a network often evokes that of the internet, a system of communication platforms designed to share information. Family relationships fall into networked structures. Root systems of trees spring up in discernible and physical representations of interwoven connection. Lakes, glaciers, rivers, oceans, and rainclouds participate in a networked system of their own. 

It is recognizing that these networks exist, and identifying new forms of connection which I am preoccupied. Built on frameworks including post-humanist thought, feminist theory, human capacity for empathy, moral ethics, and the ethics of care, my art seeks to make connections that have gone unnoticed, and build new connections to human and non-human, living and non-living entities in our network of earth-dwellers. 

Utilizing many tools including 3D modeling and digital fabrication, data visualization, interactive technologies, algorithmic processes, animation and techniques in video art, I seek to situate the viewer within relationships other than human, and ask them to consider the dynamics of care, control, and power in an interwoven network that necessitates balance. 

Jullian Young currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado, where she is pursuing an MFA in Emergent Digital Practices (New Media) at the University of Denver. Her work has been exhibited in Denver at Leon Gallery, Vicki Myhren Gallery and in the Theater District as part of the Denver Digerati Festival, among other venues.