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Work Samples

Mold spores in Petri dishes

My work use the mold spores collected from my surroundings to make the invisible microbiome visible while documenting, preserving, and creating a historical record of microbial life existing around me. I create large-scale installations formed by microorganisms on different-sized panels. These panels later assemble to construct an abstract landscape. I isolate these organisms from soil, plants, and trees. I incubate them in a synthetic but habitable environment where I witness living organisms' interactions, struggles, and conflicts across the picture surface.

Bordered World

Bordered World, Evolving mold in 2500 Petri dishes at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, 2014-15 DESCRIPTION: 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.

Fertile Faces (Jo Cosme)

Fertile Faces (Jo Cosme), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches In ‘Fertile Soils’, the resident artists at Mass MoCA and Istanbul Art Residency interacted and contributed to my work with their unseen microorganisms. After taking their polaroid portraits and collecting samples from their body, I reconstructed their images with their mold spores. Each person’s unique microbiome transformed their portraits into a new reality.

Colony '50'

Colony '50', 2021, Mold spores on panels covered with resin, 8x9ft At Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC 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

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About Selin

Anne Arundel County

Selin Balci's picture
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, and a Bachelor... more

Biological materials in my work

I am an interdisciplinary artist and a researcher. My projects merge traditional art practice with scientific materials and biological mediums. I collect living microorganisms such as fungus, bacteria, and mold from my surroundings, then transfer them into a synthetic but habitable environment where I witness living organisms’ endless interactions, struggles, and conflicts across the picture surface.
 
Simultaneously natural and artificial, the synthetic environment provides a stage on which I act as creator and curator while it serves as a vivarium for microscopic organisms. While decontextualizing the microorganisms living in nature, I also make them visible to our eyes with distinct colors and forms. Once my work is completed, microorganisms shift from the microscopic world to the macroscopic world. Forming borders, divisions, and edges, I create visual and observable interactive biological landscapes

  • Mold spores in Petri dishes

    My work use the mold spores collected from my surroundings to make the invisible microbiome visible while documenting, preserving, and creating a historical record of microbial life existing around me. I create large-scale installations formed by microorganisms on different-sized panels. These panels later assemble to construct an abstract landscape. I isolate these organisms from soil, plants, and trees. I incubate them in a synthetic but habitable environment where I witness living organisms' interactions, struggles, and conflicts across the picture surface.
  • Mold spores in Petri dishes

    My microbiology background influences my artwork. My previous studies in research laboratories focused on pathogen biology. We asked questions such as to how they exist, interact with each other, and impact our environment. I apply the same acute scientific laboratory practice to create my artwork. I research simple living organisms in a laboratory environment and record the manners in which the microbes interact with one another in a Petri dish, as well as the colors and aesthetics those interactions produce.
  • Close-up mold spores on paper

    Because of their microscopic size, we don’t commonly notice them and therefore they represent largely an unseen world. Growth media, a food source made of potato is used as a base to create a living platform for the microbes I grow. In other words, I create a ‘world’ for them and then let them live with their own rules.
  • Close-up mold spores on paper

    When they are cultured in growth media they appear in different colors, because of the pigments in their body and secretion of compounds that change the color of the growth media. Hence, they become visible.

Fertile Faces

Fertile Faces, 2022-Ongoing, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches

‘Fertile Faces” combines photography and biological mediums. This project is an ongoing project since 2021. It started during my residency at Istanbul Art Residency and continued at Mass MoCA artist residency in 2022. In this interactive project, Participants contribute with their portraits and microorganisms taken from their bodies.
 
Mold spores are considered a destructive power. However, in this project, mold spores carry the concept of portrait into a new physical reality. I take polaroid portraits of the participants and collect mold spores from their bodies. Then, these microscopic organisms are applied to the polaroid to destroy their portraits. Each person’s unique microbiome transforms the portrait into a new reality. This process makes the microorganisms in participants' bodies visible with distinct colors, textures, and forms. The unseen inhabitants’ interactions and their natural forms create a new identity for the participants. mold spores that we recognize as harmful, reconstruct their portraits.
 

  • Fertile Faces Installation View

    Fertile Faces, 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches at Mass MoCA Artist studios
  • Fertile Faces (Jo Cosme)

    Fertile Faces (Jo Cosme), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches In ‘Fertile Soils’, the resident artists at Mass MoCA and Istanbul Art Residency interacted and contributed to my work with their unseen microorganisms. After taking their polaroid portraits and collecting samples from their body, I reconstructed their images with their mold spores. Each person’s unique microbiome transformed their portraits into a new reality.
  • Fertile Faces (Tatiana)

    Fertile Faces (Tatiana), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid, 3.108 × 3.024 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Self-Portrait)

    Fertile Faces, 2021, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Oscar)

    Fertile Faces (Oscar), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Gisela Rosario Ramos)

    Fertile Faces (Gisela Rosario Ramos), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Becky)

    Fertile Faces (Becky), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Carolina)

    Fertile Faces (Carolina), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches
  • Fertile Faces (Freddie)

    Fertile Faces (Freddie), 2022, Mold spores on Polaroid covered with epoxy, 4.233 x 3.483 inches

Contamination Series, 2019-2022

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.

"If the artistic process is more interesting than the outcome, as some modernists hold, then the greatest artist is nature itself. Its systems are endless and inexorable, even if the results aren’t always impressive to the naked eye. Take, for example, the fungal experiments of Selin Balci, one of five former Hamiltonian Artists fellows who return to the gallery in “Empirical Evidence.” The Turkey-born Marylander is exhibiting such seemingly inert items as petri dishes that contain slowly evolving mold spores. Far more dramatic is a more artist-directed piece, a five-minute fast-motion video in which molds spread across a world map. It demonstrates the power and scope of the tiniest living things."
Mark Jenkins, October 1, 2021, The Washington Post
 

  • Colony '50'

    Colony '50', 2021, Mold spores on panels covered with resin, 8x9ft At Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC 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
  • Colony '50'

    Colony '50', 2021, Mold spores on panels covered with resin, 8x9ft At Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC
  • Colony '50'

    Colony '50', 2021, Mold spores on panels covered with resin, 8x9ft At Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC
  • Contamination '9'

    Contamination '9' 2022 Mold spores on panels covered with resin, 2022 4x4'
  • New Land

    New Land, Mold on yupo paper mounted on panels and covered with epoxy resin, 50x150", 2019 At Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY "Selin Balci utilizes mold spores grown in a bio lab as metaphors for the human condition in our ongoing fight for resources and territory. These abstract works on panels are a new form of art that takes months to grow in a laboratory/studio." Curators Charlotte Mouquin and Victoria Rolett

Contamination Series, 2013-2018

"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. 
 

  • 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)

    Microscopic mold on panels, 40x100”, 2018
  • 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.
  • Contamination 28 (detail)

    Contamination'28', mold on panels, 60x60", 2014 at Trawick Prize Exhibition, Gallery B, Bethesda, Maryland.
  • Contamination 28 (detail)

    Contamination'28', mold on panels, 60x60", 2014 at Trawick Prize Exhibition, Gallery B, Bethesda, Maryland.
  • 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, 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, 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 (detail), mold on panels, 60x110", 2012 at ConnerSmith Gallery, Washignton, DC
  • Contamination II (detail)

    Contamination II (detail), mold on panels, 60x110", 2012 at ConnerSmith Gallery, Washignton, DC

Contamination Series, 2011-2012

"If the sinister, fast-growing fuzz that claims your forgotten strawberries for the trash triggers your gag reflex, you might need a little art therapy. In a rare feat of left- and right-brain cooperation, local biological artist Selin Balci uses microorganisms as her medium, shepherding their colonies’ colors and textures into elegant, kaleidoscopic three-dimensional patterns. "

by CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI  
SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2014

  • Contamination I

    Contamination I, Mold on panels, 70x220", 2012 at University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland
  • Contamination I

    Contamination I, Mold on panels, 70x220", 2012 at University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland
  • Contamination I

    Contamination I, Mold on panels, 70x220", 2012 at University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland
  • Contamination I

    Contamination I, Mold on panels, 70x220", 2012 at University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland
  • Bound

    Bound, Mold on panels, each 11x14", 2011 at The Pearl Conard Art Gallery, The Ohio State University, Mansfield, Ohio
  • Bound

    Bound, Mold on panels, each 11x14", 2011 at The Pearl Conard Art Gallery, The Ohio State University, Mansfield, Ohio
  • Structures

    Structures, Mold on panels, 10x10" each, 2012 at Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC.
  • Structures

    Structures, Mold on panels, 10x10" each, 2012 at Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington DC.

Invisible Istanbul

Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin

During my residency in Istanbul, I focused on Istanbul’s environmental problems. With a population of 16 million, Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey. Unfortunately, Istanbul has been experiencing environmental pressures due to population growth, industrialization, and rapid urbanization. As a result, Istanbul is experiencing increased air, water, and sea pollution. To address these challenges, I used mold spores as a destructive force. I used landscape images of Istanbul and interrupted the charming scenery with the mold spores isolated from its ground. This project creates a memory of Istanbul; documenting, preserving, and creating a historical record of living beings during my residency period.

  • Invisible Istanbul

    Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin
  • Invisible Istanbul

    Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin
  • Invisible Istanbul

    Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin
  • Invisible Istanbul

    Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin
  • Invisible Istanbul

    Invisible Istanbul, 2021, Microscope slides and mold spores covered with epoxy resin

Preserved Land Videos

My recent focus has been on human impacts on nature. These impacts can be profound, ranging from the changes in the environment that adversely influence biodiversity to climate change. We managed to destroy ecosystems by acquiring more land to build homes and cities or transforming ecosystems into agricultural fields to feed the ever-increasing population. Perhaps for many, human-induced impacts are unnoticed and only acknowledged after experiencing the outcomes on a personal level. However, ignored circumstances may change our lives for the worst, such as the microbes existing in our surroundings. Worrying about the environment gave me the idea of preserving my surroundings in the proposed Preserved Land project.

In these videos I used the mold spores collected from my surroundings to make the invisible microbiome visible while documenting, preserving, and creating a historical record of microbial life existing around me. All the mold spores are collected from where the polaroids are taken. 

  • Landscape I

    Mold spores collected from Annapolis, MD landscape, video, 41 sec, 2022
  • Mass MoCA Landscape

    Mold spores collected from Mass MoCA residency, 32 sec, 2022

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 

The World

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.

"The map-based works present this phenomenon in stark terms, played out as geopolitical headlines ripped from the paper. The World depicts worlds run amok by war, disease or possibly famine. Faint pencil outlines suggest physical boundaries that the organisms push to the brink. Teaming and frothing, they have no “place” to go, and so they turn on one another in a game of brinkmanship, drawing boundaries with battlegrounds in an effort to gain the upper hand. The pieces are both eerie and transfixing, haunting yet mesmerizing, and their underlying message could be ignored offhand, if not for the fact that we see similar battles taking place today in regions as remote as Syria and as near as Dallas." Eric Hope for East City Art, 2014. 
 
 

  • The World

    The World (4th version), 2020, Mold spores on panel covered with epoxy resin, 24x40" 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.
  • The World (5th version)

    The World (5th version), 2020, Mold spores on panel covered with epoxy resin, 16x20"
  • The World

    The World, video, originally 4:33min, 2010 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, forms of power, political pressures, immigration, racialism, and the dominance of superior countries.
  • The World (1st version)

    Mold spores on panel, 2012, 24x40"

Connect with Selin

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Selin's Curated Collection

This artist has not yet created a curated collection.