Degree Show 2026
Martha Binks Iturriagagoitia
BA Art and Design
I am Martha, an art and design student exploring material honesty through construction, deconstruction and process-led practices. Working primarily with cement, I allow materials to behave naturally, cracking, decaying and transforming over time, creating fragments that reflect urban environments, architectural change, and the fragile, evolving nature of contemporary city structures.
Fragment of Architectural Decay 1 combines cement and a found sheet of metal to explore construction and deconstruction. The work highlights material honesty, allowing industrial materials to remain raw and exposed. Balancing strength and fragility, it suggests a fragment of a larger structure, reflecting urban decay, impermanence, and architectural transformation over time.
Fragment of Architectural Decay 2 is a negative cast of cardboard packaging in cement, with steel rods pierced through the form. The work emphasises material process and transformation, creating an architectural yet archaeological fragment that appears both constructed and excavated, highlighting decay, structure, and the tension between permanence and fragility over time.
Fragment of Architectural Decay 3 is a cast cement structure incorporating reclaimed plastic guttering. The varied heights create a skyline-like form, resembling a clustered city of skyscrapers. Combining industrial and found materials, the work explores urban growth, construction, and decay, presenting architecture as both solid and fragile, evolving and transforming over time.