<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Marlena Corcoran</TITLE> <BODY bgcolor="#555555" link="#457eff" vlink="#a96fbc" alink="#000000" text="#eeffee" font="5"> The project Shelf Life opens up the difficult--and artistically challenging--issue of living with death. The National Disability Arts Forum in England solicited proposals in an open call to writers and artists, and selected contributors. NDAF organized workshops around England, in which writers explored their experiences living with a condition that was likely to shorten their lives; or being close to someone in that position. Artists responded to the same issue. My contribution was the image that you clicked on to get to this page. These were published in the book, Shelf Life, in April 2003. <br><p> I worked with the poetry/prose produced in the workshops in the most material sense. I asked the writers to provide me with handwritten drafts as well as final manuscripts or typescripts of their work for Shelf Life. I copied and manipulated the manuscripts. I then fragmented and combined them into a sculptural object--a mask--forming them in a mold made from my own face. For the final image, I used the scanner as a camera, and further digitally manipulated the image. The artwork retains traces of the writersĽ own words and phrases, and reassembles them into a collective expression of Shelf Life in a new medium. <br><p> My work, which I consider a self-portrait as well as a group portrait, was enlarged and printed as a photograph, and exhibited in a show which accompanied the launch of the book in Manchester, England on 12 April 2003. </BODY> </HTML>