My germs
by Silvia Mangosio

portfolio shortlisted call 'HARMONY. WITH RAGUSA FOTO FESTIVAL 2022', 2022

In humans, there are between 500 and 10,000,000 different species of microorganisms, the most numerous of which are bacteria. This set of symbiotic microorganisms that coexist with the human organism without damaging it, is the human microbiota, which develops during the first days of life and survives surprisingly long. The human microbiota is a good example of mutualism: cooperation between different types of organisms that brings an advantage to each of them. When we talk about microbiota we refer to the totality of single microorganisms ⎼ bacteria, fungi, archaea and protozoa ⎼ and of the viruses that live and colonize a specific environment in a given time. The term microbioma indicates the totality of the genetic heritage possessed by the microbiota, that is the genes that the latter is able to express. The numbers are astonishing: 99% of our genetic component derives from bacteria, as if it were a second genome. As Peter Godfrey-Smith wisely points out in his book Metazoa, the most ancient life forms that preceded plants and animals were unicellular. Animals and plants, on the other hand, are huge collaborative associations between cells. Cells are delimited structures, they have an interior and an exterior: the boundary is a membrane which, although constituting a partial closure, includes channels and openings in its thickness. We are the environment just as much as we are part of it. If we consider our body a microcosm, an environment composed not only of our DNA, but that of billions of other microorganisms in all respects belonging to the "Animalia" group, and therefore, albeit more simply than us, alive, can we define ourselves as a single being? Where does our ego begin, our consciousness, and where does the contribution of genes and the vital presence of germs, bacteria, the fauna that colonizes us end? Passing from the microcosm to the macrocosm, as in a fractal structure, does our very presence on Earth and in the universe not follow the same principles of mutualism and interconnection? We too, in the great vessel-container Earth, are not in the end only (... only! or perhaps incredibly) a part of the whole that in order to survive should tend to harmonize with its environment, although we have rationally tried to place ourselves on another plane, detaching ourselves from nature to distinguish ourselves from the animals and the ecosystem - even for culturally very interesting pre-historical needs? Isn't that of interspecies harmony, which starts from within us in such a profound and vital way, a much greater magic than the phantom superiority pursued by the human being? “My germs” is a work that has a starting point in photography and flows into sculptures. The artistic practices of Nicola Morittu and Silvia Mangosio passes from intimate portraits exploring the body experienced and felt as an environment, both for the microbiota with which it is in symbiosis and for the conscience - the ego - that inhabits it, up to real bacteria growing experiments that become resin sculptures. Moving from micro to macro, clay sculptures reproduce organic shapes while microscope photographs analyze germs, molds and pixels, exploring the harmony that holds together, with a thin thread, ourselves in the world and the world within us. The project consists of a series of photographs taken with various means ranging from photography under the microscope to the use of the telephone camera, analog and digital shots that compose a mosaic with a strong installation component. To accompany the photographic part, a sculptural part is presented, which includes elements in raw clay (image 11), resin sculptures of germ coltures (image 10) and microscope photos (reference image 03) that will be produced on different supports than traditional photographic paper (lightbox or projection).


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