WIZARD LAB is delighted to present Tight Bonds, Ivana Adaime Makac‘s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
The central body of work in this exhibition focuses on Adaime Makac’s ongoing project Gourdes sous contraintes (Gourds under Constraints), which explores the complex and often ambivalent relationships humans maintain with domesticated non-human life forms, emphasising their capacity for adaptation. Drawing inspiration from non-Western artisanal traditions, the project employs techniques that involve shaping gourds or calabashes by applying constraints during their growth, guiding them to develop into altered, constrained forms.
The artist explains: “By cultivating different varieties of gourds (lagenaria siceraria), I observe the different behaviours that these fruits experience in response to the constraints imposed (ropes, various debris from protective packaging, waste from everyday objects). Some varieties will push back, or even tear the constraints by their growth force, while other varieties will adapt to the constraint and ‘self-sculpt’ through it”.
The title alludes to the relationship between the gourds and the elements that have constrained, or not, their growth; but also, to the “tight bonds” between all of the artist’s projects, among which there is always a link because of the re-utilisation (or re-cycling) of elements, both at a material and symbolic levels.
For this exhibition, Adaime Makac has conceived the gallery as a single, cohesive installation in which gourd sculptures and bronze casts of calabashes intermingle with recurring and newly developed elements of the artist’s practice.