XENOBIO 2022 – 23

Xenobiotics relates to artificial elements that appear in organisms or contexts in which they don’t belong.

Within the framework of XENOBIO I’ll interweave sculptural paintings, sculptures and sound into a blackbox audiovisual experience with cold dimmed spotlights, performance and text fragments. The pieces in this spatial installation explore how the ever-increasing amount of toxic compounds – which in several cases can be seen as a materialisation of greed – find their way into our bodies and destroy important functions, especially in the genetically susceptible; around 25% of the population, and among them those who are more exposed will subsequently get very sick. Just like the canaries which were brought to the coal mines to, through their death, signal to the mine workers when the air went too toxic – the conditions of this growing crowd of ‘canaries in the coal mine’, which I’ve also worked with in a previous collaboration project, can be seen as warning signs from the front of an unparalleled ecological crisis or hyperobject of unprecedented scales.

Not only have I narrowed down on concealed molecular processes and biochemical imprints, but I’ve also focused on their psycho-physical and existential consequences in this affected, growing minority – experiences that are alienated from ordinary phenomena, yet universal in terms of suffering. What is also of interest here is what Felix Guattari named ‘the three ecologies’ – something I’ve delved into the last decade – where the mental, social and environmental ecology are all interdependent. Nor is it only man who suffers from this, but also endangered animal species and biotopes – which of course backfires on ourselves when we are part of nature down to the smallest of part, no matter how much we try to separate our culture from it.

XENOBIO 2022 – choir piece, 6′ 10”

 

 

 

Serpent roulette 2022 – oil on canvas, spray painted cables, wood, ca 170 x 120 x 50 cm

 
 

 

Unimaginable phase I & II 2022 – plaster on bones, weathered twigs and concrete, ca 155 x 145 x 15 cm

 
 

 

Substructures will always appear 2022 – wall pieces, copper pipes, foam remnants, ca 35 x 115 x 40 cm

 
 

 

Epigene trap 2022 – oil and acrylic on canvas, steel, ca 174 x 140 x 30 cm

 
 

Semi-deaths on the road 2022 – oil and acrylics on canvas, asphalt rubber, ca 174 x 140 x 50 cm

 

 

Their greed into toxic 2022 – colour welded steel, ca 91 x 78 x 60 cm