Invisible Visibilities
The exhibition explores the irregular, multi-layered connections between human and planktonic existence. It is an experimental exploration of shared atmospheres in which different forms of knowing, sensing, and breathing overlap and interpene-
trate. As artist-in-residence at HIFMB and HWK, I investigate how knowledge about these pla-netarily significant yet invisible organisms is constituted through various practices of ap-
proach—and how we ourselves are transformed through these processes.
FOREL ULE OF A TIME SPENT arranges images from the last three months of research according to the Forel-Ule scale, a scientific color measurement for seawater. The objective scale becomes a subjective ordering system for a research journey; time and color become an archive of change—a reverse oceanography that asks: How does a color system influenceour perception? Is there a right color for environments?
ALWAYS MORE THAN ONE shows overlays of texts in red and blue and makes different modes of knowing physically experienceable. Red filters reveal poems about plankton, blue ones the corresponding scientific explanations. Depending on the filter, reality changes—what does it mean to always be "more than one"?
WATER, OTHERWISE – the hydrogel aquarium departs from smooth, quick touches toward toughness, friction, duration. What looks like water feels completely different. Water is a medium of lightness for us; for plankton, it is density. How does the world feel from another body, how to experience the other materiality of the plankton world?
BREATHING PLANKTONIC SEAS – the scent vessels contain industrially produced "ocean"fragrance (paradoxically mostly made from terrestrial ingredients). They explore the reciprocal relationship between humans and sea in our mediated ocean imaginaries: There is no "natural" ocean scent—what we perceive as such is already cultural construction.
KNEE DEEP IN RESEARCH is every human voice behind this work. The artifical light translation machine the piece transforms waves. Sound into light, light energy to close currents, to translate light again into sound. Only through a flashlight on solar cell the interveiw becomes audible—a technical echo of photosynthesis, that is communication over distances. How do we become more listening, sensing beings?
Exhibition at Museum für Mensch und Natur Oldenburg, June 2025.
Made possible thanks to the ArtWaves Residency and HIFMB Oldenburg.