Photo: Beniamin Urbanek
Porous Projections
Afro-Asiatisches Institut Graz
2022
Maaijke Middelbeek’s “Other Mother” presents organisms in their growth. She states: You mothered me, so let me mother you. Radical role reversal takes place as the silent care we receive from the environment is addressed. Speaking from the other end of the archaic mother nature, a forever-mother, the artist refuses to stay in the naïve role of a child, a care- receiver, that we so often find comfort in when it comes to our relationship with nature. She recognizes the care that was previously taken for granted and actively proclaims to give back the nurturing. The work asks its viewers what kind of unnoticed care is embedded in your growth, and if you would join her in the giving-back.
The exhibition “Porous Projections” presents works by 5 international artists who shed light on the topic of mushrooms as an entity in their endless becoming. The presented artworks deal with the largely un-lit knowledge produced by those who were excluded from writings of historical narratives; namely women, migrants, bodies of queer and Caribbean diasporas, and non-human elements that we are too dull to listen to.
Curatorial text by Kyungrim Lim Jang
Photo: Beniamin Urbanek
Detail of
MY ARTIFICIAL WOMB
Symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast
in their amniotic fluid, acrylic glass
tubes with fluids
Left: Other-Mother, Self-Portrait with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast
- 78 x 100 cm photo on Dibond, below mother culture in glass jar
Right: MY ARTIFICIAL WOMB installation with acrylic glass, symbiotic cultures of bacteria
& yeast, amniotic fluid, tubes, fluid bags with blood and urine of the artist, sugar,
water, tea, mother's milk, ultrasound of the artist as a foetus (Nov. 1979)
2021-2022
SCOBY (Symbiotic Cultures Of Bacteria & Yeast) in
its amniotic fluid, acrylic glass, sunlight
2021-2022
BECOMING WITH
combining fluids
fluid bags with blood and urine of the artist,
sugar, water, fennel and anise tea, mother's
milk, ultrasound of the artist as a foetus
2022
Photo: Beniamin Urbanek
OTHER-MOTHER: Self-Portrait with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast
Photo on Dibond 78 x 100 cm
For the publication I did an interview about cultivation, interspecies care,
symbiotic life, interconnectedness, cross contamination and the pandemic.
Below a link to the interview in PDF.
Group show with other works from: Jason Evans video End of the season, Diana Policarpo video The Oracle, Kearra Amaya Gopee video installation How to break a horizon, Roberta Lazo Valenzuela sound installation Indoors.
Curated by:
Kyungrim Lim Yang & Huda Takriti
Publication design by:
Hannah Sakai
> CONTAMINATION <
When fungus grows on the fennel and anise seeds (sealed) and contamination occurs during an exhibition about fungi and contamination, based on Anna L. Tsing's book "The Mushroom at the end of the world". As Tsing’s book argues; "Every species requires liveable collaborations to stay alive. Everyone carries a history of contamination, the idea of purity is a myth."
Becoming with (detail):
OTHER-MOTHER & MY ARTIFICIAL WOMB
Left: Other-Mother, self-portrait with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast, photo 78 x 100cm on Dibond,
mother culture in glass jar
Right: MY ARTIFICIAL WOMB installation with acrylic glass, symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast,
amniotic fluid, tubes, fluid bags with blood and urine of the artist, sugar, water, tea,
mother's milk, ultrasound of the artist as a foetus (Nov. 1979)
2021-2022