We Are All Lichens. New Artistic Practices for a Multi-Species World

Abstract

As we move into the 21st century, it is increasingly difficult to deny the evidence that we live on a wounded planet. Art’s ability to generate questions, to question who we are and, consequently, how we relate to our environment, will play a decisive role in the not-too-distant future. From this starting point, we could discuss two key aspects that can be invaluable aids to this new and fascinating journey: on the one hand, paying special attention to the processes of form generation in nature, and on the other, the adoption and investigation of new materialities. Contemporary sculpture can, and should, draw on this new materiality. A materiality that is both matter and concept. Thus, mindful of this context, my artistic work emerges from an active strangeness in the face of a world whose complexity is immeasurable but no less stimulating and seductive, and from the conviction that the coordinates within which we have moved in so many fields have led us to a path of no return. This work firmly focuses on exploring these biological and symbiotic processes, these new materials (bacterial bio cellulose, algae, starch biopolymers, rosin, mycelium, etc.), and geometries composed of multiple superpositions, discontinuities, and folds. These works emerge from a close look at a world that leaves us with more questions than answers, where time and matter are inseparable parts of the generation of form.