ieva maslinskaitė

Metal seed, industrial shell.
Plants were observed, measured, grown behind glass. Regulated. Patented, owned. Seeds, modified in a way that after a single use, they are unable to reproduce.

By treating the image as an ecosystem I aim to understand what kind of role image production has played in the capitalization of biodiversity and how this role could be reversed by acting counter to contemporary image culture: challenging permanence and reproducibility with temporariness, ownership with kinship, embracing mutability and mutualism as central ways of ecological being.

In the ecosystem of an image, where light, time, and sensitive material interact in their physical environment, I introduce microorganisms to the cyanotype photographic process, making images that go beyond the representation of the environment but are environments, or ecosystems, themselves. Light feeds the emulsion, emulsion feeds bacteria, they generate energy and spread throughout time. In repurposed greenhouse glass vessels these elements co-exist, affect each other, and grow.