Meta-Species (land and sea), 2023/2025

The installation is exhibited as part of the Open Art Festival at Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras in Alicante (Spain), curated by Colectivo A Quemarropa, and consists of Mediterranean algae and lichens from the German forest (Eifel) entangled with needle and thread. Algae are carried away by currents, lose their natural habitat, become useless, and are eliminated by humans to keep the beaches clean. The work seeks to give this natural waste a new narrative. It is a complex species, valued as „material“ of the moment, opening up new paths in established production processes or considered as a role model for developing symbiotic relationships. Meta-Species (land and sea) is especially interested in approaching different forms of Algae as bio-artistic models to establish a hybrid ecosystem between the natural and the artificial, the artistic and the scientific, the real and the the fictitious. Together with lichens, the „terrestrial algae“ – a symbiosis of algae and fungi, they are interwoven into a multifaceted fabric extending their physically and visible means to a meta-level speculating new futures.

The work was also shown separately as Meta-Species (land),  and Meta-Species (sea), both recreated in 2025 due to the loss of the original art work in the flood disaster in October 2024 in Valencia (Spain).

Meta-Species (land and sea), 2023 | acrylic on recycled cardboard, machine embroidery on Mediterranean algae

Exhibition view Más que Humanos; Naturaleza, Biología y Sostenibilidad en el Arte, 2023 | Open Art Festival, Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras, Alicante | Meta-Species (land and sea), 2023 together with the work of Rakel Meyers