Being What It Is

The work explores what makes life possible from ecosystems of bacteria and other microorganisms in relation to environmental conditions. Columns of different colonies of bacteria living in symbiosis are created from soil and water contaminated by mining industry waste in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region along with a ceramic sculpture of an oversized chewing gum.

The living and therefore constantly changing piece presents the biological archive of a latent landscape that develops until it becomes visible to the human eye, while the ceramics become integrated into the system until they are no longer visible. These scenarios are based on different ways of existing, ways of feeling and communicating, and then letting things go. The focus is not necessarily on where they end up or how they remain. Rather, it is about the process of transformation of the chosen subjects and/or objects, and the transformation of us, proactive agents in their aesthetic and conceptual exercises.

From the experimental world, Being What It Is explores the resilience and flexibility of materials and souls to invite a reconsideration of priorities and hierarchies.

Columns of bacteria ecosystems and ceramic, 2023