Almost every one of us humans hosts Candida Albicans, a fungus commonly found in the intestinal and vaginal tracts, as well as in the mucous membrane of the mouth. While it is not usually dangerous, the idea of fungi growing within us is often accompanied by feelings of disgust or repulsion. If we understand repulsion as a lack of clear boundaries of identification between the self and the other, could we for a moment see Candida not as an abject intruder but rather as an organism for which the human body serves as defective host? 

Building on this question and drawing parallels to the practice of researchers extracting human cells for their research from their own blood, Eugénie created a system in which liquid fungal cultures are grown on a medium from glucose, water and the serum of the artist’s blood. By recontextualizing her own blood as a nutrient for a nonhuman being, Eugénie challenges the ideas about and our relationship with the microorganisms that inhabit our body.

The work is accompanied by a video that reflects on a process, shaped  which was shaped by protocols of hygiene, ongoing risks of contamination and notions of purity and cleanliness surrounding the human body.

Credits: 

Concept, Installation Design and Videography: Eugénie Desmedt

Production: Vincent Maurer, Philip Pastrik

Composition and Sound Design: Christof Adolf 

Microscopy Images: Candela Fernández-Fernández, Myrto Katsipoulaki

Scientific collaboration partners: Beatriz Cristovão, Candela Fernández-Fernández, Myrto Katsipoulaki, Jakob Sprague, Raghav Vij

Supported by Künstlerische Tatsachen and Hans Knöll Institute for Infection Biology

With thanks to Lyndsey Walsh, Enrique Torres and Yul Koh