in(UN)becoming
Doing, undoing, and doing again,
in dilated and diverse timeframes,
geological to biological.
in/un becoming places an emphasis on the transitional moments between materials. We focused on both organic and inorganic matter, in other words, the biosphere and lithosphere landforms in which they reside.
The exploration traces the transformation of landscape matter through the diverse timescales of natural cycles and anthropic-induced processes, mutating both organic and inorganic entities. We reduced ourselves as well as the place we inhabited to the common denominator which transversally unites earthly entities: materiality.
We look to metabolism within Saaleck as a guiding principle to document the past while also looking to the future of the place. As a collective, we have gathered, catalogued and set in motion a series of objects and findings to exemplify several forms of metabolism that were found in the vicinity of Saaleck.
in/un becoming has been curated based on the rates of metabolism that we have observed, from plant and fungi species to soil and mineral samples. We have reduced these into essential colours through the processes of natural dying and pigmentation, additionally visualising chemical components via chromatographies. We have captured the hidden digestive mechanism of the building through mycelium imprints and crystalised found-objects to similarly explore the stratification of time. We endorsed the metabolic processes by embracing the ephemerality of the colours and the perpetually changing forms.
In light of the imminent conservation of the building, we propose the exhibition as a reminder of the transience of ideological beliefs embedded into architecture as well as its physicality. Reducing it to matter allows us to reposition the future trajectory of the building.
Matter controls us. Exercising the ability to change ourselves with it is fundamental. We see metabolism as a choreographer of life and we humans are dancers among many.
The dieDAS (Design Akademie Saaleck) 2022 fellows are made up of four members.
Steffie de Gaetano is an interdisciplinary researcher merging architecture, landscape, anthropology and art currently based in Brussels and is about to start her doctoral research at UHasselt. Nico Alexandroff is a research-driven architect, spatial designer and curator, currently a doctoral candidate at the RCA, London, his thesis explores the entangled relationships between politics, ecology, and earth system science in the context of the Arctic. Giulia Pompilj is a research-based designer investigating the biological, historical, and social aspects of ecosystems, her practice seeks to blur the scientific and the fantastical. Adrian Pepe is a Beirut-based fibre artist who weaves ancient crafts in contemporary artistic pieces which explore socio-cultural, ecological, and methodological perspectives.