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https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/exhibitions/strange-encounters-with-vegetal-others/
Strange
Encounters with Vegetal Others
Špela Petrič
Opening:
21 September 2018
Exhibition runs 22 September - 25
November 2018
Fri- Sun, 2-6 pm
Slovenian
artist Špela Petrič approaches art production with
a background in Hybrid Arts as well as a PhD in Biochemistry. These
dual epistemological approaches inform her work with the Plant Kingdom
as part of a multi-species collaboration exploring the ontologies,
methodologies, ethics and practices of care involved in our relationship
to the vegetal. Her first solo show in Berlin will give an insight
into her multi-species endeavour.
The green kingdom, upon which we depend for our very survival, functions
on a radically different biological basis from us: seemingly inert,
literally vegetative and endowed with unexplored forms of intelligence.
Yet science reveals an intricate world of mysterious chemical conversations,
interspecies networks and non-centralised operations alien from
our own existence. Through her work Petrič proposes novel modes
of human-plant communication, intercognition and exchange.
Her series 'Confronting Vegetal Otherness' is a performative exploration
of such an exchange. Skotopoiesis (meaning ‘shaped by
darkness’) proposes a biosemiotic process for intercognition
between the artist and a field of cress. In a durational performance
the artist stands 20 hours before the field, her shadow obstructing
light, contributing to a paling and lengthening in the cress, while
resulting in a minute shrinking of the artist. The durational aspect
forces the artist to take part in a vegetative sense of time, forcing
a post-anthropocentric approach towards the nonhuman.
Strange Encounters: Metaphysics, Algae and Carcinoma uses
biotechnology to overcome our difference(s) from the plant kingdom.
Taking a scientific view of being at the cellular level, as well
as the cell as biotechnical labour force, Petrič arranges the
in vitro encounter of two types of cells: Chlorella,
a free living single-celled photosynthetic algae and a human cancer
cell, carcinoma of the bladder. The performance/ experiment resulted
in at least one case of hybridity, as the cancer cells appeared
to ingest the algae. "I am performing biopolitics, selecting,
orchestrating, monitoring, documenting, narrating” remarks
Petrič. “The cancer and the algae negotiate the space
I allow for them. Biopower penetrates the plant just as it does
the human."
A further work, The Plant Sex Consultancy, produced along
with Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis and Jasmina Weiss, proposes
design-based solutions to the sexual (or pollination) problems of
six plants. Somewhere between medical devices and floral sex toys,
the design solutions engage our imaginations, challenging our preconceptions
of vegetal agency and sentience. They also refer to a possible future
where a dearth of pollinating insects necessitates drastic technological
interventions. A recent study showed that over the last 30 years
insect populations in German nature reserves have plummeted by more
than 75%. For instance, as cyclamens' main pollinator has gone extinct
the artist-designer team proposes a special prosthesis, which shakes
pollen onto other visiting insects.
-Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz (curators)
Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, published on 26/09/2018, updated on 05/10/2018
by Joachim Müller-Jung, „BioArt“ boomt : Wahrheiten,
die uns nur durch Kunst bewußt werden
Labiotech.eu,
published on 30/09/2018 by Clara Rodríguez Fernández,
Trouble in the Soil Bed: Sex Toys for Plants
Špela
Petrič,
Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis und Jasmina Weiss, PSX Consultancy,
2014
Špela
Petrič,
Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis und Jasmina Weiss, PSX Consultancy,
2014,Photo by Miha Tursič
Špela
Petrič,
Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis und Jasmina Weiss, PSX Consultancy,
2014,Photo by Miha Tursič
Špela
Petrič,
Pei Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis und Jasmina Weiss, PSX Consultancy,
2014
Špela
Petrič,
Strange
Encounters: Metaphysics, Algae and Carcinoma,
2017,
Photo by Miha Tursič
Špela
Petrič,
Strange
Encounters: Metaphysics, Algae and Carcinoma,
2017
Špela
Petrič,
Strange
Encounters: Metaphysics, Algae and Carcinoma,
2017
Špela
Petrič,
Skotopoeisis,
2015,
all
photos (c) Art Laboratory Berlin, unless otherwise noted.
With
the generous support of:
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