The central enquiry of this thesis is to examine the role that 'principles that guide actions' could play in manifesting life force of materials. This object-based installation project works principally with harakeke (NZ flax), stone and water, exploring the concept of a life force of materials, with specific reference to 'Spiritual Materialism', a term coined by Klaus Ottman. A process-based practice such as this, places primacy on materials, actions and events through establishing durational processes that drive the making. A diffractive methodological approach frames the project, discussing agential realism theories in relation to a Māori view of mauri (life principle) in order to explore the life of materials beyond the world of sense perception, thus recasting the viewer's relationship to the material world.