Kills 99.9% of bacteria is a group exhibition – including new and existing video, audio and installation works by Kate Cooper, French & Mottershead, Edy Fung, Jasmin Marker, Jennifer Mehigan & Darius Ou, and Roee Rosen – that explores encounters with otherness.
We Need Sanctuary, Kate Cooper’s video installation in Gallery 1, features perfect, injured and decaying digitally-rendered female forms. These figures are subjected to and resist idealised representations of the human body and exploitative labour, resulting in an uncomfortable confrontation with abjection. The immersive audio works in French & Mottershead’s Afterlife series, which includes Grey Granular Fist in Gallery 1 and Woodland in Gallery 2, have been developed in collaboration with forensic anthropologists, ecologists and conservators. They offer meditations on death and an intimate knowledge of the body’s decomposition and return to the environment.
For Kills 99.9% of bacteria, Edy Fung has created site-responsive sculptural installations across CCA that reference barriers and borders in our immediate vicinity, such as the Derry walls. Norens for Derry reference traditional Japanese ‘noren’ room dividers, which signal a passage from one type of architectural and symbolic space to another, and incorporate building materials associated with breathability and permeability, such as hydraulic lime and horse hair.
Jennifer Mehigan’s work includes the video SUICIDE GIRLS and the posters and works in the ongoing project Fantasy Flesh 2.0 – collaboratively developed with art director and designer Darius Ou. Mehigan’s works merge science fiction, essay, memoir and virtual reality to explore the effect and affect of depression, trauma and crisis. They include a visual identity for the skin and cosmetic product brand ACHLYS, which promises interior and exterior self-care and healing required in an age of precariousness and catastrophe. Kills 99.9% of bacteria includes collaborations with non-human entities that occupy the body and the world around us.
My Immortals, Jasmin Marker’s silk wall hanging, is reminiscent of a Buddhist mandala. It features patterns made up of images of the microbes she has cultured from her own body (ear, armpit and gut), her environment (dog, shower, sinks, fridge, soil) and slime-mould and mushroom cultures. Like French & Mottershead’s audio work Woodland, this work connects us to the invisible living entities inside us, from which we have originated, and which consume us after we pass. The Dust Channel, a video by Roee Rosen projected in Gallery 3, explores ideas of purity, containment, contamination and desire through the format of an operetta set in the residence of a couple whose fear of dirt, dust, or any alien presence in their home takes the shape of a perverted devotion to home-cleaning appliances. Rosen connects their behaviour to broader narratives of xenophobia and fear of ‘contagion’ that leads to social exclusion.
Kills 99.9% of bacteria is accompanied by a public programme of events including an intergenerational food fermenting workshop, a natural wine tasting event and a school’s programme of workshops led by artist Jasmin Marker.
Some of the works in Kills 99.9% of bacteria may not be suitable for younger viewers. Please speak to a member of staff for details.
Kate Cooper
Kate Cooper lives and works in London and Amsterdam. She is the Director and co-founder of the London based, artist-led organisation Auto Italia and is currently a resident at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam. Solo and group exhibitions include Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2016); TENT, Rotterdam (2016); Piece Unique, Cologne (2016); Frankfurter Kunstverein (2015); ABC, Berlin (2015); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2014); Jerwood/FVU Awards, Jerwood gallery London/ CCA Glasgow (2014).
French & Mottershead
French & Mottershead are the London based artist duo Rebecca French and Andrew Mottershead who, for 18 years, have invited us to think again about who we are and our ties to place and one another. With a longstanding interest in placing the audience at the centre of their work, their practice concerns itself with questions of identity, community, and how we connect with nature or urban experience. Working across media from video, performance, photography, text, and sound, their works are borne from rigorous research, often working with experts from a variety of fields. They have been commissioned by Tate Modern and The Photographers’ Gallery, and exhibited in galleries and the public spaces across the UK and internationally. Since 2016, their Afterlife works have been exhibited at The Whitechapel, London (2017) The Whitworth, Manchester (2017); and ANTI Festival, Finland.
Edy Fung
Jasmin Marker
Jasmin Marker is a Belfast-based, German born interdisciplinary artist who works primarily with members of the microbial kingdoms. By engaging with a variety of biocultures she seeks analogies to (human)societal cultures and explores relevant scientific, anthropological and philosophical concepts. While her research originates from a dedication to environmentalism and sustainability it extends deeper into questioning the evolution of human psychology. Jasmin graduated from University of Ulster with a Bachelor in Fine Art in 2016, where she has completed a graduate residency in 2017. Since then she has exhibited in various venues in Belfast including PS2 Gallery (2017) and Catalyst Arts (2017) and undertaken the Interface residency at Inagh Valley Trust, County Galway (2017).
Jennifer Mehigan
Jennifer Mehigan is an artist based in Belfast. Initially trained in graphic design, her work spans multiple platforms, mixing together 3d modelling, found objects / images, poetry, textiles, painting, and installation. Recent solo exhibitions include Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2016/17) and Interstitial in Seattle (2016). She is currently an MFA candidate at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University.
Darius Ou
Darius Ou is an independent art director and graphic designer from Singapore who provides art direction & graphic design services to commercial and cultural fields. He has worked with and for institutions like 89plus, University of Sussex, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.
Roee Rosen
Artist, filmmaker and writer Roee Rosen’s work explores identity and the notions of evil, specifically addressing collective memory and the power of creativity in extreme situations of life and death. Through video, painting and narrative, Rosen’s humour can be thought of as at once self-deprecating and incendiary. He is a professor at HaMidrasha College of Art, Kfar-Saba, and at the Bezalel Art Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem and his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions including documenta 14, Kassel/Athens (2017); Artspace, New York (2017); Haus der kulturen der welt, Berlin (2016); The Sixth Moscow Biennial (2015) and Tate Modern, London (2010).
This exhibition and associated events are made possible through the generous support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
