About Selin

Anne Arundel County

Selin Balci is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. Her artistic practice combines scientific equipment and biological mediums with traditional art materials. Selin’s work is classified as bio-art, a new direction in contemporary art that employs living organisms. The marriage of her formal science and art education let her exploit this relatively new practice. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Maryland, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from West Virginia University… more

Bordered World

Bordered World, Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
 
Bordered World creates a competition for resources, territorial wars, and struggle for power and control among living organisms. In this project, I reference the fundamental, underlying social dilemmas and principles of our existence in an effort to understand and highlight social issues. My concepts are explored using living entities such as fungus and mold to recreate observable interactions and conflicts across the picture surface, where the outcomes reveal boundaries, edges and distinctive forms. In Bordered World, all vital resources are restricted. This limited environment makes microbes compete for resources, dominate a particular area or become invasive and endanger others. When they share the same living platform, a conflict for resources arise and eventually this results with a borderline. The behaviors of the microorganisms resemble human actions and motives. Visually representing the world map, these microbes act as metaphors for war and the human predicament.

"In Selin Balci’s bio-art installation Bordered World, 2,500 Petri dishes compose a three-dimensional kaleidoscopic world map representing the universal struggle for survival and dominance. Within each hand “painted” Petri dish, live molds and fungi are in an observable battle for limited resources.  Distinctive borders slowly form and new colonies develop during this microscopic feud."
Smack Mellon Curator 

  • Bordered World
    Bordered World
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
  • Bordered World
    Bordered World
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
  • Bordered World
    Bordered World
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
  • Bordered World
    Bordered World
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
  • Bordered World
    Bordered World
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15
  • Installation of Bordered World at Smack Mellon gallery
    Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15

Contamination Series, 2013-2018


 

  • Annapolis (Highland Beach)
    Annapolis (Highland Beach)
    Microscopic mold on panels, 40x100”, 2018 at School 33 Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland. In this work, I used microscopic mold that is collected from Highland Beach, Annapolis to create an unseen landscape of the scene. Emerging from a diverse array of mold, this work interprets the landscape with invisible inhabitants.
  • Annapolis (Highland Beach)
    Annapolis (Highland Beach)
    Microscopic mold on panels, 40x100”, 2018
  • Contamination 28
    Contamination 28
    Contamination'28', mold on panels, 60x60", 2014 at Trawick Prize Exhibition, Gallery B, Bethesda, Maryland. DESCRIPTION: I use live microscopic mold that leaves physical inscriptions by direct contact on the surface of a paper or board, which creates a living platform. In Contamination Series, the surface of each panel is laced with graceful, brilliant mold until the entire surface is covered and patterned with circular borders. Then, I assembled these forms and shapes that mold produced, to create various visual references that can relate to both natural and human impacted landscapes. The forms have similarities to human-induced activities on the landscape. They create territories, boundaries, and borderlines and end up with conflicts on the picture surface. "Balci gives living microbes a place to grow and organize themselves on specially prepared plates. The microorganisms, which normally are invisible to the naked eye, are made visible in these conditions. They create maps of “territories” as they battle for the food sources, and their behavior is disturbingly parallel to many scenarios of human conflict. The artist organizes and assembles the landscapes or maps that result from these natural migrations into abstract compositions that are limited in tonal variation but elegant in form." by Claudia Rousseau, Gazette.net, September 18, 2013.
  • Contamination 28 (detail)
    Contamination 28 (detail)
    Contamination'28', mold on panels, 60x60", 2014 at Trawick Prize Exhibition, Gallery B, Bethesda, Maryland.
  • Contamination 28 (detail)
    Contamination 28 (detail)
    Contamination'28', mold on panels, 60x60", 2014 at Trawick Prize Exhibition, Gallery B, Bethesda, Maryland.
  • Contamination 32
    Contamination 32
    Contamination 32, mold on panels, 70x70", 2013 The University of Maryland, College Park Stamp Student Union, Contemporary Art Permanent Collection, College Park, MD.
  • Contamination 32
    Contamination 32
    Contamination 32, mold on panels, 70x70", 2013 The University of Maryland, College Park Stamp Student Union, Contemporary Art Permanent Collection, College Park, MD.
  • Contamination 32
    Contamination 32
    Contamination 32, mold on panels, 70x70", 2013 The University of Maryland, College Park Stamp Student Union, Contemporary Art Permanent Collection, College Park, MD.
  • Contamination II
    Contamination II
    Contamination II (detail), mold on panels, 60x110", 2012 at ConnerSmith Gallery, Washignton, DC
  • Contamination II (detail)
    Contamination II (detail)
    Contamination II (detail), mold on panels, 60x110", 2012 at ConnerSmith Gallery, Washignton, DC