How did you get into such a unique form of art?
From my early childhood, I was dreaming about medicine and all kinds of sciences. I was really into surgical operations and body-related things. My grandmother was an ophthalmologist, so she did operations on eyes, and I read a lot of her books and encyclopedias when I was a child. I think that this passion brings me to this area. I visited the British High School of Art and Design and understood that that place was the place where I should be. So when I was in a foundation course, we were asked a question— to think about how we could manage our art practice and what to do next. I was just sitting at my table relaxing and kind of meditating. I had this realization, I just accidentally got it from somewhere from above.
It's very esoteric, but when you're relaxing and letting your mind float and understanding the moment, then all of your questions turn into answers. Those days, I was thinking about microbiological mapping. So I was interested in seeing things that occur during the day, starting in the early morning. For example, I get up, I touch my phone, the toilet, things in the kitchen—I was interested in this cyclicality of daily things and daily life. It's all about the living processes involved in these things. Is something decomposing as an end? Or is decomposing the beginning? This is one of the most important questions I am trying to answer, in a battle with an artificial world and fake things when you don't know what you're looking at. Like, maybe all my art is in Photoshop. This illusion is very powerful.
So what’s your relationship between the artificial and organic, as someone whose work is to manufacture living entities to look a certain way?
We talked about how I used to dream of all different fields of science. I learned a lot about different projects involving genetically modified people, and so on. I began dreaming that all these dishes—they're like humans. I mean, I work with them as with people, to be honest, and I treat them like my friends. And I talk to them. It sounds very extraordinary, but it's true. Because I feel this kind of love for how they grow and how they appear. I'm very upset when I understand that they are starting to die, and I need to capture them as fast as I can because they change every minute. So I have kind of a golden time period. It depends on timing and on visuals. The dish should have a transparent part— like clear agar— contrast colors, different textures, and different periods of spore-making. When it's ready to give spores, it starts to become more black. So when I look at a dish, I am already envisioning this in my head and thinking 'This is the image I want to capture.' Two hours or three hours later, this composition will change. It will change the day after. I would draw a parallel with human growth.
How does your growth mirror the growth of your organisms?
It's very connected with my psychological state. For example, I'm into transcendental meditation therapy. So when I'm in an angry state, I see all these dishes and think 'What the fuck am I doing? This is ugly; this is the wrong composition and I don't like it.' But returning to my good state, and then opening this dish, I don't see it as being as bad. It is like communicating with people when you're in an angry state—you just can't communicate effectively.