Clarissa Falco, Digimon #4, 2024. Porcelain, iron 1280° with reduction, 15cm x 15cm x15m.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION:

Camilla Alberti, Ivy Chilelli, C-LAB (Laura Cinti & Howard Boland), Clarissa Falco, Wataru Iwata, Andrea Samory

H for Hybrid

Opening May 7th, 2025.

May 7th- June 13th

The Oxford Dictionary defines a hybrid as the offspring of two different species (plants, fungi, or animals) or as something that emerges from the combination of two distinct elements. The concept of the hybrid has a long history across cultures and has recently gained renewed interest, particularly within the context of posthumanist philosophy and science.

Closely related to the hybrid are reflections on the monster, as explored by Donna Haraway in The Promises of Monsters (1992). In this work, Haraway defines monsters as the “in/appropriate others” that inhabit what we understand as “nature,” challenging conventional perceptions and encouraging a rethinking of what “nature” truly means. As early as 1985, in her seminal text A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway questioned the notion of nature as a purely biological construct. The cyborg—conceived as a cybernetic organism whose body integrates technological prostheses—was presented as both a fictional and philosophical framework for transcending dichotomies such as nature/culture and binary categorizations of gender.

In biology, the concept of holobionts—close associations between different organisms, typically a host and the species living within it—has garnered significant attention, largely due to the work of biologist Lynn Margulis. Hybrids, like holobionts, challenge humanist and anthropocentric notions of the subject as an autonomous entity, separate from its environment and other beings. Holobionts, for example, reveal that the biome hosted within an individual profoundly influences not only physical health but also mood, perception, and even mental well-being. As Haraway remarked in 2004, “one literally thinks-with the bacteria one hosts.”

The artists featured in this exhibition explore various aspects of hybridization processes, engaging with these reflections and often pushing beyond them to present new perspectives.