HERMAPHROGENESIS: Marcin Gawin
as part of the FACET programme
2023
VSSL Studio
ABOUT:
“Long ago, in Ancient Rome, the organs and entrails of sacrificed animals were decoded and interpreted by those tasked with defining the limits of reality. This ancient divination technique— called haruspicy – was performed by a trained priest – called a haruspex – who ritually consulted the liver, lungs, and heart of skinned beasts to discern the will of the gods.
Interdisciplinary artist Marcin Gawin performs a hybrid form of haruspicy in their new installation Hermaphrogenesis, remixing occult divination techniques with queer aesthetics in new forms of media. Here, the artist is interested in the body as a metaphor for the mutability of fixed systems. They hack biology by skinning the sciences, exposing the heteropatriarchal and anthropocentric institutionalization of bodies, both inner and outer, as a cyberpunk/witch haruspex. They etch, sculpt, diagram, exegete, cast, photograph, and manipulate a trinity of hand-crafted silicone organs, leaving us to decipher the will of the queer gods the artist has invoked on our behalf...” (complete text available here)
- Hermaphrogenesis: Organs as Ruins of the Posthuman Body , commissioned exhibiton text from [M] Dudeck
➣ vssl-studio.org/FACET
CREDITS:
Curated by Benjamin Sebastian on behalf of VSSL Studio. Assistant curators: Ash McNaughton & Mine Kaplangi. Funded by Arts Counicl England.
2023
VSSL Studio
ABOUT:
“Long ago, in Ancient Rome, the organs and entrails of sacrificed animals were decoded and interpreted by those tasked with defining the limits of reality. This ancient divination technique— called haruspicy – was performed by a trained priest – called a haruspex – who ritually consulted the liver, lungs, and heart of skinned beasts to discern the will of the gods.
Interdisciplinary artist Marcin Gawin performs a hybrid form of haruspicy in their new installation Hermaphrogenesis, remixing occult divination techniques with queer aesthetics in new forms of media. Here, the artist is interested in the body as a metaphor for the mutability of fixed systems. They hack biology by skinning the sciences, exposing the heteropatriarchal and anthropocentric institutionalization of bodies, both inner and outer, as a cyberpunk/witch haruspex. They etch, sculpt, diagram, exegete, cast, photograph, and manipulate a trinity of hand-crafted silicone organs, leaving us to decipher the will of the queer gods the artist has invoked on our behalf...” (complete text available here)
- Hermaphrogenesis: Organs as Ruins of the Posthuman Body , commissioned exhibiton text from [M] Dudeck
➣ vssl-studio.org/FACET
CREDITS:
Curated by Benjamin Sebastian on behalf of VSSL Studio. Assistant curators: Ash McNaughton & Mine Kaplangi. Funded by Arts Counicl England.
