Bordered World, Evolving mold in Petri dishes, 2014-15

In this work, I used living mold to create an interactive biological landscape. This project consisted 2500 different sized Petri dishes with living mold. Each Petri dish consisted two different mold; one red and one black. When they are placed into the same living platform, a conflict for resources raised that eventually results with a borderline. These microbes are metaphors for the human predicament and wars.

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 molds 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.

I used mold to specifically refer to human behavior, culture and society.The world's political map was re-created on a board with growth media (food), then different microorganisms were placed to represent each country. The work demonstrates human actions, form of power, political pressures, immigration, racialism and the dominance of superior countries.

In "200" participants contributed to my work. I asked 200 gallery hosts to give me samples from their body. My initial aim was to create portraits of them by using an untraditional way. Most of the hosts have been participated with hair, nail and small skin slices, fabric from their clothing and little pieces from their pockets. I placed the samples in small Petri dishes with nutrient media. The hosts labeled the Petri dishes with their names, sample names and the date--which is a very scientific method to label the Petri dishes in a laboratory. After few days, the microorganisms that the hosts mutually shared their environment with - started to grow in the Petri dishes and change the forms and colors each day during the exhibition day.

Land, Mold on yupo paper covered with watch glasses, 2016

“an·thro·po·gen·ic: (chiefly of environmental pollution and pollutants) originating in human activity”.

Human induced activities impact our environment in several ways. Effects include; increasing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing water quality, deforesting land, over-consuming natural resources and contributing to global climate change. ‘Anthropogenic’ questions how human induced activities impact our ecosystem.

pəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n

pol·lu·tion: “The presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.”