I don’t have time to make art -- I have a job

“ I don’t have time to make art -- I have a job” gathers all my bioplastic explorations, yet also specifically refers to a series of semi-transparent biodegradable sheets with prints of sinks and objects from three different hospitality places I was working at over the last 3,5 years.

Bioplastic is an embodied material -- it acknowledges something through it;s own skin. It’s organicity, ability to quickly deteriorate, parallels our own carnality. The pressure of our socio-economic reality permeates the body, yet art creation persists in various forms. Art not as an act of resistance, but as the only sublimation channel. Art not as a site for capital, but as the only safe place, Art as a sacred ritual, as dreams reserved for tomorrow, as a way to escape, as a way to survive in current reality while embodying the alternative one.

I wanted to highlight how freedom is often unnoticed by those who have it, how it forms identity and mediates our bodies, and ask why we continue seeking artistic expression and what role privilege plays in what we create.

I started my journey from an attempt to intersect all possible organic agencies: human/plant/animal/mushroom (I would argue that human/animal form one category, but the distinction is important to showcase integrality of naturecultures).

Bioplastic surprised with its disparity -- every object was different from a previous one and only pushed me further to explore more and more ways to work with it.I was maniacally implementing more and more different elements into it: mold from a joghurt, margarin mold, melted candy, moss, thread, pistachio peels that reminded me of nails. The quality of the bioplastic also heavily depends on the precursors/ initial materials forming the final solution. I had three main ones (potato starch base, tapioca starch base and gelatin/agar-agar base) which I was also mixing together according to the object i was trying to make. Bioplastic became a site of constant chemical experimentation and exploration of possible more-than-human materials.

experiments

I started exploring my dreams again — at least now I can remember them most of the times (my guess is that starting to take lions mane and fly agaric again helps with it). I dig deep into subconscious images — ghouls of my mind vaccinating in water near the ocean bottom. I think of interspecies bodies built on parallels of human and plant. I dream of hybrid body — when moss interferes muscle and bone matter replacing it with its own structure — a bio cyborg in flesh — who does this flesh belong to, plant or human? Newly emerged body is found on intersections, similarities — a simplest schematic drawing of a root system repeats the notion of the arterial veins distribution in almost any mammal. It casts itself out of my visions, carves out dreams of impossible futures into bodies of multitude, bodies of grace and shared struggles, ironic bodies signifying everything while belonging to no one. The ultimate interspecies experience lies within history of life and death itself — a cycle without an end and beginning where all instances find themselves inseparable from their predecessors and posterity.