10\10\2013
Written by Daan Rombaut
Opening Hybrid Skins: 10th October
Hybrid Skins, a new exhibition will open tonight at 7pm in TETEM art space (Enschede, The Netherlands) with a performance by Local Androids. Hybrid Skins is all about the world of the future and how artists and designers cope with new ethical issues and aesthetic possibilities. The exhibition is curated by artist Melissa Coleman and we had a little chat with her.
Progress in nano technology, genetic manipulation, and cloning offer a future in which nature can be modelled after our own ideas. Is your body and genetic code something you own and something you may copy, remix or destroy? Is the use of biological material from a lab innocent, because no animal or human has died for it, or does it have its own memory and life? Are we allowed to modify nature to fashion whims? This exhibition deals with all of this and can be visited from 10th October until 24th November in TETEM art space.
Melissa Coleman, artist herself and curator of Pretty Smart Textiles, has been asked to curate Hybrid Skins. So in turn we asked her a few questions about this remarkable exhibition.
What’s it like to be the curator of Hybrid Skins?
Melissa Coleman: Awesome. I’m extremely glad that we have successfully gathered so many beautiful and exciting works. I think the result is an extraordinary exhibition. No doubt as a curator it is very nice to be this close to the pieces and to be able to take them in your hands and look at them from all possible angles while you install them. Secretly that is my favourite part of making exhibitions: the intimacy with the works. I guess I’m just kind of a nerd in that way; I want to understand how every single piece works.
Next to being a curator, you are also an artist. How do you keep the artist and the curator separate?
MC: That’s something you do partially. The things which fascinate me as an artist are also the things which interest me as a curator. As an artist you try to tell one story. As a curator you aim at creating a bigger frame in which the stories of multiple pieces of art communicate with each other. But both as an artist and a curator I try to trigger people’s fantasy: “If this is already possible, what else is?” I think it’s an advantage that I do both. You can compare it to actors who direct films. You know what’s it like to be on the other side of things, so you can better anticipate, empathize and help out. Especially with interactive work there is a lot involved if you want to exhibit. I almost don’t know how I would do that if I didn’t have the experience of being an artist.
In your own words, what is Hybrid Skins about?
MC: For me it’s about the combination of skin, fashion and biotechnology. The connection of technology with the human body is able to change drastically thanks to biotechnology. This sparks ethical questions such as: to what extent are my body and my cells really mine? Can I copy, remix or destroy them? Should there be purely aesthetic reasons to change your body and nature? I think the possibilities for fashion are very exciting if not only clothes could be designed, but also the bodies who wear them. Or if it were possible to grow the material for clothes in labs, in the same way as fabrics are now woven or printed. The possibilities are nearly infinite. This exhibition provides a few examples, but it’s up to the visitor to fill in the remainder.
How did TETEM art space find you?
MC: In the past I have done other exhibitions concerning wearable technology. TETEM art space wanted to do something with this subject, so they asked me to help out.
To which work in Hybrid Skins are you drawn the most and why?
MC: I think I have the strongest connection with 2.6g 329m/s, the bulletproof skin made by Jalila Essaïda. It is closest to reality and the questions the exhibition incites are the most pressing with this work. You have to have an opinion about it, because it already exists.
Other works in the exhibition are:
Anouk Wipprecht en Daniel Schatzmayr: Spider Dress
Local Androids: Like Living Organisms
Anna Dumitriu: Infective Textiles