Exhibition at Orleans School of Art and Design from 7 February to 6 March 2020.
Offering a point of view at the crossroads between art and science, the exhibition Mycelium, Poiesis of Living Forms is a laboratory for sensitive experimentation, where scientific processes support a practice of modeling.
Mycelium would appear to be the neurological network of nature. It is dubbed the Wood Wide Web. It branches out and connects all the living organisms present in its environment.
Just like mycelium, this research on the shaping of lifeforms leads to many variations and ranges of living things as a bio-material. The fruitful research and findings are only the beginning of new experimentations.
Here, the idea of the process is central. The choice of the term Poiesis, which qualifies the study of the process of creation in art, illustrates this. Growing the material, shaping it, being attentive to its needs, knowing its qualities and weaknesses, all these factors create an almost intimate relation between the artist and the material.
Three main outlines appear within this exhibition space: the mycelium; SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast); and the crystals. Three phenomena and three installations which arise from a natural process, and which query matter, temporality, scale and space.
Visitors are invited to discover new forms and materials generated by living things through a range of objects, texts, videos and photographs appealing to the senses of sight, touch and smell.
Mycelium supported by the DRAC and the Centre-Val de Loire Region, the Molecular Biophysics Centre and the CNRS Orléans. With special thanks to the pedagogical, technical and administration team at Orleans School of Art and Design, the ÉCOLAB research unit (head: Ludovic Duhem), Laurence Laboutière (mycologist) and the members of the CBM, with the help of Charlotte Bergami (scenography), Erwan Roussel (graphic design) and Antoine Jenniches (assembly).
Chloé Jeanne graduated from EESAB Quimper in June 2018. She then undertook a post-graduate degree with the research unit ÉCOLAB, which permitted her to join the Centre for Molecular Biophysics (CNRS Orléans) as guest artist. She has also collaborated with the mycologist Laurence Laboutière. The exhibition Mycélium, Poiesis of Living Forms is the culmination of this year of research.
Her practice turns towards life and bio-materials. Her works draw from scientific research and design. She proposes installations and sculptures taken from high intensity, sensitive environments. Spaces, objects, smells, living organisms form the vocabulary she deploys in a narrative which plays with the ambiguities of perception.
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