Life Models

About

Life Models is an installation activated by a one-night event. The installation is centered around a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacterial Yeast (SCOBY) and a clawed mechanism.A SCOBY is a thick and fleshy wet mass that grows as a skin on a fermenting fluid. SCOBY’s are used to brew Kombucha which is a fizzy health beverage originating from Northern China. The tea, previously known as ‘immortality tea’, has been brewed for thousands of years. 

Within Life Models, the SCOBY is grown on unusually large scale. Forming a body in space, the alienated skin questions definitions of life. The bacteria is both contrasted against and related to the clawed mechanism. The mechanism has been specifically designed to lift the bacteria from a vat. It sits on scaffolding that produces a stage and becomes vitally animate on the one-night event. The mechanism was made in collaboration with Patrick Dent.

Bianca Hlywa (b. 1992 Montreal, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist who recently graduated from the Goldsmiths MFA programme. Bianca has participated in the UN/GREEN conference by RIXC hosted through the Latvian National Museum of Art, 'Whale Fall', a group show curated by Dane Sutherland and shown in Gossamer Fog and Fold Lab, as well as the ArtWorks Open 2018 where Bianca won the second place award. Solo shows and projects include 'Computers Don’t Eat Sugar To Make More Computers', curated by William Noel Clark, 'First is Food for Food' at FKSE in Budapest, Hungary and 'The Independent Republic of The Bulge in the Hallway' with Drawward Project in Montreal, Canada.