POST HUMAN GARDEN

by Maria Rebecca Ballestra
in partnership with the Taiwanese artist Wen Chin FU

The research of the post-human theme is reflecting on the borders between nature and science and between artificial and natural, the artists create a new multimedia work, inspired by the most recent debates regarding genetic modification, transgenic creations and biotechnology.

Artificial garden was created in the Museum room in collaboration with CRA-FSO Unità di Ricerca per la Floricoltura e le Specie Ornamentali – Research Unit for floriculture and Ornamental Species of Sanremo. It will consist of plants – in pots and in vitro – in strange and original shapes, with the aim of simulating an environment populated by plant species and transgenic flowers. The garden will be enhanced by the projection of DNA mapping of plants and cellular material in test tubes. The work completed with an interactive sound installation created by the Taiwanese artist Wen Chin Fu: human presence, as a outside element in an environment dominated by artificial nature, will be the alien factor that activates the installation itself, trigging particular sounds, music and noises each time someone passes.

Several years now, Maria Rebecca Ballestra and Wen Chin Fu have worked together on shared projects. After meeting in Taipei in 2005 during Maria Rebecca Ballestra’s residence at Taipei Artist Village, the artists have continued their friendship in Europe, where Wen Chin has moved to continue her studies. They have therefore set in motion a profitable partnership, uniting the installational aspect of Maria Rebecca Ballestra’s own work to Wen Chin Fu’s more technical and sound related approach.

They created the interactive project Filters (2010) for the Moscow Biennial of Young Art; the video Wen Chin is Catholic (2007) presented at various exhibitions (Diva Fair, Paris; Instants Video, Marseilles; VideoAppart, Paris; Photo-Taipei, Taipei); the installation The Sound Tree (2008) created for the atrium of Palazzo Borea D’Olmo in Sanremo, where the civic museum if housed; the light-box work with sound backing Casablanca 2064 (2009) presented for the first time at the Alberto Pane Gallery in Paris during the exhibition The Future is near. The future is now!

Post Human Garden exhibited at Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art,Genoa, Italy,
28 June – 28 August 2011

more info:
Post Human Garden is a site specific project created by Maria Rebecca Ballestra especially for the sala Camino/Fireplace Room in the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in the context of the exhibition project CHANGING PERSPECTIVES which is entirely dedicated to her work.
link to MariaRebeccaBallestra website
link to CHANGING PERSPECTIVES project

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