Transforming the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery into an active laboratory, membrane tensions features a constellation of new, site-specific works composed of cellulose that allude to the beginning of life where the delineation between internal and external was essential for life forms to first emerge. In using and placing cellulose as the medial, membrane tensions proposes future exchanges of building a regenerative culture.
The first section presents living cultures of SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) whose conditions are monitored weekly. The cultures produce bacterial cellulose that is harvested on-site and used to intervene the Gallery windows.
The second part of the installation presents lightweight sculptures and drawings made of the same material (bacterial cellulose). With references from the symbiogenesis theory and micropaleontological explorations, this is an invitation to think about the shared origins we have with the rest of lifeforms.
Maru García, Membrane tensions, 2021
Commissioned piece by the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.
