For her new commission at Fabrica, Hadzi-Vasileva re-creates the religious text from a recently painted out mural in the chancel area of the building. Facing this structure, a vortex of 1000 salmon skins was suspended on hundreds of nylon threads from the roof of the exhibition space. This delicate edifice physically exposes the relationship between the place, its history and the local context. Epidermis was originally commissioned by Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery as a response to the decline of its local fishing industry. The piece has been remade for Fabrica drawing out new connections with Brighton’s own fishing past and present.

Her work attempts to expose the relationship between human and natural landscapes and the way in which humans interact with nature. The process of making is particularly important to Elpida’s work, as the artist seeks to develop new methods using unconventional materials not relying on established practices and mediums. As with this installation, she painstakingly cleaned, dried and fixed together the fish skins and bones, emulating the labour of fishermen in her art practice. Natural materials are here invested with their symbolic meanings: the fish being a symbol of Christianity, the work becomes a kind of memorial to Fabrica’s past history as a place of Christian worship.