Holobiont, 2020
Gouache, watercolour, ink on paper 110 x 79 cm This work I started right before the pandemic, it was originally called Corona Queen, when I had the frustrating experience of on one hand trying to warn friends and family in Europe that the virus was going to spread to them and on the other how extremely limited the amount of control I have over anything. Then I learned about symbiosis through Lynn Margulis (Symbiotic Earth), that symbiosis is the key driver of evolution, that humans are 90% not human by cell, and that for every one of our human genes our body contains 200 microbial genes, so we are complex ecosystems ourselves. This, together with Margulis’ and James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that the whole earth is one big ecosystem, brings up the question where a human starts and ends. The fact that the virus jumped from animals to humans because we cut down their natural habitat lead to the title Holobiont, meaning an assemblage of a host and the many other species living in or around it, kind of a teɑm, e.g. ɑ humɑn. |
〈合生〉, 2020不透明水彩、透明水彩、水墨、紙
110 x 79 cm 我在疫情尚未爆發前就開始創作這幅本來叫做〈新冠皇后〉的作品。那段時期我因為多次嘗試警告在歐洲的家人與朋友疫情很快就會擴散過去這件事,以及發現很多事情皆不在我的掌控內而感到沮喪。而後,我透過 Lynn Margulis(《共生地球 》)認識到「共生」 。共生是進化相當關鍵的驅動力。人類 90% 的組成不是人類細胞,且我們體內的每一個人類基因都含有兩百個微生物基因體,證實我們本身就是複雜的生態體系。 Margulis 的理論以及 James Lovelock 蓋亞假說提出了一個疑問:地球本身作為一大生態體系,人類的起點與終點究竟何在?而當我們剝奪了動物的棲息地,病毒也因此從動物身上散播到人類。作品標題〈合生〉講的便是宿主與其他不同物種共同生活的現象,他們像是個團隊,他們是人類。 |