Sympoietic Solo Show at The Clemente Center

Solo show at The Clemente
Curated by Tarah Rhoda | Sculpture-text in collaboration with
Erik Morse
Sympoietic is a solo installation of interactive light sculptures by Sabrina Merayo Nuñez.
When I first met Sabrina, she was participating in the SVA Bio Art Summer Residency, at a laboratory space in which I run and teach. While it was her first experience working with bio art, her innate interest in elements and de/construction made for a great foundation in collaborating with biological matter. She has gone on to explore growth and decay,
converting matter into data and all the inherent nuances in translation.

The objects on this exhibition have a nest-like appearance and are similar to chrysalises, cocoons, and other ephemeral containers associated with incubation, domestication and transformation. The sculptures are arranged in a way that calls attention to the body, either by acting as surrogates or as points of contact, like a stool or mirror. As if the line between flesh and its interactions have blurred, the forms are engulfed in a transparent material, morphing from fragments to furniture to figures.

Rather than using petroleum based resin, Sabrina developed a collagen based bioplastic that is biodegradable and speaks back to the mediation of matter. The amber colored bioplastic is embellished and implanted with a variety of lenses, crystals, chips of bark, electronic sensors, and furniture pieces, much like the petrified tree resin that preserved biological artifacts from the Neolithic period. The surface’s intricate networks of roots, veins, and wires highlight how entangled the routes of nature and technology are and how each has influenced and been influenced by mankind. 

As visitors move through the space, motion sensors activate the sculptures. Depending on how they are approached, they may light up, go dim, or pulse as if their hearts were beating. This animated response conjures up a living presence that seemingly acknowledges the act of being seen. 

Some of the works have small viewing windows, revealing a delicately textured womb interior. Inside, a glass bulb partially filled with agar encourages microbial life to thrive. Found branches and roots seed the initial growth, which will evolve over the course of the exhibition and become co-collaborators in their own right.

Sabrina Merayo Nunez is interested in examining and bringing together three axes in her work: the processes of nature, human capacity to control them, and the technology that have emerged as intermediaries between them. Tools such as lenses, machines, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, not only allow us to expand our senses and capacities of understanding, but modify the world we live in. Sabrina views these technologies as extensions of our perception, challenging us to consider the materiality of our own physicality.