A Tale of Elasticity
2020. Screenprint, potato-based bioplastic, and thread on handmade paper.
Edition of 30+4AP, 50x35 cm.
Commissioned by border_less Editions.
A Tale of Elasticity is part of extensive research on the history of potatoes and their changing temporality in the past centuries. Once celebrated for their long temporality (durability) back in the 15th century, potatoes are now sought for their long-chain polymers, which provide the necessary structure for bioplastic production. In bioplastic form, potatoes cater to the ephemerality that is increasingly needed in the face of a deteriorating climate crisis, using their ability to adapt to new conditions, environments, and circumstances. This shift in our demands from this simple tuber also points to a shift in our perspective of time and ephemerality and our relationship to these notions. The piece brings together imagery from the artist’s research on this particular material transformation as well as a single piece of potato-based bioplastic on handmade paper.
Tentacles in Plain Sight
2021. Screenprint, potato-based bioplastic, and thread on handmade paper.
Edition of 10+2AP, diptych, 21x30 cm each.
Primordial Soup Served in Minuscule Portions
2022. Screenprint on latex.
Edition of 19+2 AP, 45x16 cm.
Commissioned by border_less Editions.
“The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell”. - Zora Neale Hurston
Primordial soup is a concept proposed by the biochemist Alexander Oparin in 1924, referring to the conditions present on the Earth around 3.7-4.00 billion years ago, prior to the origin of life as we know it. According to Oparin, this primitive surface/soup included carbon, hydrogen, water vapor, and ammonia, which then reacted with one another to create organic compounds that later gave way to complex life forms. Primordial Soup Served in Minuscule Portions, pursues one of these vital elements, carbon, in the form of calcium carbonate, one of the most abundant minerals on the Earth. It brings together things, and organisms comprising this compound across different timelines: eggshells, calcite crystals, and marble, as well as an incubator that preserves the composition of this mineral by acting as a surrogate. While the formation of an eggshell lasts approximately 20 hours in a chicken’s body, it takes hundreds of years for a single block of marble to form. By tracing various journeys of this mineral, the piece aims to conflate disparate temporalities and metabolic rates on a single sheet of latex.
