Mothering Bacteria is a durational interactive installation that explores maternal notions of caretaking bacteria that resides on and off the skin – and how we can hold symbiotic spaces for co-becoming other. Building on what Butoh dancer Iwana Masaki describes as a process of extricating pure life from our bodies, artists Gabriela Aceves-Sepulveda, prOphecy sun and Freya Zinovieff use expanded and contracting movement sequences, alongside an ambient soundscore to transform, hold and reveal the complex ecosystem of the self. The sounds are a symbiotic response to how bacteria grows and moves within the confines of the gallery. The artists use their mid-age female bodies inscribed by the lived experience of childbearing as metaphors to reflect on how their bodies are situated as hosts of non-human entities and reflect upon their corporeal capacites to ameliorate themselves. The female body here is a host and an environment constantly entangled in the production of Self and Other.
CREDITS/ TECHNICAL INFO
Project: Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda, prOphecy sun and Freya Zinovieff
Sound-score: prOphecy sun and Freya Zinovieff
Camera: Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda, prOphecy sun and Freya Zinovieff
Video Edit: Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda
Performances: Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda, prOphecy sun and Freya Zinovieff
Location: Vancouver, BC