Current Residents Maaijke Middelbeek
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Maaijke Middelbeek, OTHER-MOTHER, Self-Portrait with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast, 2021 - Photo: Beniamin Urbanek
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Maaijke Middelbeek, installation view: OTHER-MOTHER (Self-Portrait) and MY ARTIFICIAL WOMB, installation with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast, 2022
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Maaijke Middelbeek, installation view: “Live Photosynthesis Performance” interactive object for interspecies communication with algae and Bio-reactor with symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast (part of the work "I, Holobiont"), 2023
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Maaijke Middelbeek, installation view: Reactive Fungi Bodysuit and Mycelium Motherboard, designed for parallel sensing with fungi, 2023
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Maaijke Middelbeek, Wardrobe Wasteland, Reishi cultures growing on fast fashion waste, 2023
Maaijke Middelbeek’s work is interdisciplinary, eco-centered and posthumanist. She explores our multispecies entanglements by collaborating with living organisms to co-create stories — be it Sci-Fi or speculative fabulation — for alternative worlds that nurture the vitality and potentiality of human and other-than-human beings. Witnessing the rapid human-induced change in our biosphere, Middelbeek’s work counteracts and embodies care and connection, fostering curiosity and the prospects for symbiotic futures. Her exhibitions showcase biological processes and often invite the audience to interact or “become with”, for example through objects designed for interspecies communication with algae, fungi and bacteria.
On Suomenlinna I will further develop my concept for a transformation into a Homo Photosynthesis: a chimera symbiotically entangled with the photosynthetic breath of algae — an artistic response to the rising burden of CO2. I aim to explore new and ancient human-sea and human-algae relationships while initiating algae-friendly cultivation in a phytoplant station using locally collected samples. Inpsired by plant-animals, I will research ways to become chloroplastic, creating a living membrane from micro-algae and green prostheses to finally construct a phytosuit and embody the mutation into a phytosymbiont.
Maaijke Middelbeek’s project and residency are realised in collaboration with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKOES).