I=Fe

How could a less anthropocentric mindset inform our material practices (and vice versa)? In ‘I=Fe’, this question is engaged by exploring personal enmeshment in the planetary metabolism of iron (Fe). It is pursued through ‘parallel metallurgy – extracting and transforming rust into pigment using tools fashioned from daily extensions of self (personal belongings, found objects, hardware, urban detritus). This method facilitates reflection, production, and documentation, enabling research insights to materialise through the pigment. What emerges is a gathering of stories, embodied and printed as images and fluxographic maps; from the bursts of hydrogen stars to the assemblages of agencies that we are, the tales of our lives – organic or otherwise – are woven into the ecology of iron.