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Fig Juice _ blown borosilicate glass with gold fuming, gold thread, taut and oxidized wire, synthetic hair _ La Mola Lighthouse, Formentera, Balearic Islands, Spain, 2021
Fig Juice is made up of three different co-dependent elements: tendril-like wire chains, braided or tangled hair, and forms made of glass and gold that resemble fruits or organs. The three material bodies establish non-hierarchical connections of interdependence. The installation forms an organic, unstable, humid, feminine space where the pieces of glass work between internal organs, genitals, fruits like figs, with breasts, nipples, lips and cavities ... the oxidised metal chain works like seeds sewn, but also as the skeleton that supports the entire installation. Following this deconstruction of a body, the hair as a coat falls announcing a cycle change.
It works as an example of relationships of different realms, a vegetal reproduction needing an animal actant to succeed. But the installation also works as a strange sensory system of interactions between human-made forms and semi-organic materials. An uncanny suspended environment that is objectively inert and crafted, yet its parts also seem to form organic associations and to interact of their own accord.
The title suggests a poetic extract of paradisal fertility and enlightenment, like a distillate of the transcultural symbolism of the fig and the marvel of fig plants’ collaborative intelligence. Figs’ “fruits” are balls of enclosed flowers that are only pollinated by a single type of wasp for each species, while their importance as a year-round food source makes them quintessential ecological keystones. @Latitudes
(Mariana Cánepa+Max Andrews)
Fig Juice _ MACBA, Barcelona, 2021 - 2022
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