Event 1 - Kathy High's Waste Matters: You are my future

Back before Robert Gero’s Infinity Structures exhibit was set up, I visited Kathy High’s Exhibition, Waste Matters: You are my Future. To give a little background on Kathy, she is an interdisciplinary artist who explores technology, science and art through her work. She lives with Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder in which the body fights bacteria that help break down food and absorb nutrients. Her work has brought about strong recognition through numerous awards, and has been displayed in the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, the Lincoln Center and many more notable locations.

As I first entered the exhibit, large portraits of Kathy captured my eyes and the audio from a video talking about fecal transplantation swarmed my ears. The large portraits depicted High recreating famous portraits of David Bowie. This struck me as a bit odd at first, but as I looked around the exhibit, things began to make more sense. The video that was playing described “fecal transplants”, a possible cure to Crohn’s disease that involves placing another person’s unique microbiota in the patient’s bowels to grow a new “microbiome” that the body would not attack. This is an irreversible process, thus the right microbiota must be chosen very carefully.

 

High's Bowie recreations, taken by me.

This concept of making one’s body the object and changing it or components of it reminded me of Orlan’s carnal art, and how she made her body the object, “metamorphasizing” and taking on new forms. Similarly, High seeks to change her microbiome, which brings us to back to Bowie. High’s recreations of Bowie’s portraits are a manifestation of herself, she has changed form and become Bowie. Bowie has been such a strong influence that he has become a part of her, and to take things further, High plans to request a sample of fecal matter from Bowie to “plant” a new microbiome within herself, and continue the narrative of Bowie as a part of her.

Microbiome Sculptures - Taken by me

taken by me

The gallery also housed edited images of digestive tracts created into public sculptures that blended with plants surrounded by children, in order to teach about and normalize the idea of unique microbiomes. Lastly, glass containers filled with honey and very realistic sculptures of feces were placed in the center of the gallery. This emphasized the importance of a usually discarded product to High. We often view waste as a vile and crude byproduct of life, while High views it as hope.

Fecal Matter in Honey - Taken by me

(I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of myself at the exhibit, however if you’re really not convinced I was there you could ask Mick the curator if he remembers a tall half-asian student who listened in on his conversation with Paul Rosero for an awkwardly long amount of time)