Source & Origin

June 2022

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All of our senses are summoned when we enter this historic barn in the Marais. The eye adjusts to the natural half-light and gradually detects a new and mysterious landscape, tangible almost by the diffuse heat emanating from a sole lamp, which heats a pink body of water. These are the components of an elsewhere-not identified in time and space.

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In this first collective work, Bianca Bondi and Guillaume Bouisset have dug a basin—a small mineral pond as to provide a shelter to life. A primary life form is evolving before our eyes: halobacteria, extreme halophiles belonging to the taxonomic classification of archaea. These unicellular microorganisms, originating from the Camargue salt flats, are surrounded by a crystalline crust of salt, forming a barrier between the pink liquid and the raw earth. Being

extremophiles, these halobacteria are characterized by their great resilience: everything in their being is turned towards survival. Proliferating in salt water, they feed on carbon, and alternatively on light. A single lamp tends to their well-being and reproduction; the outlines of a study of keeping alive the most primary and archaic life. 

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Could this fascinating but fragile ecosystem be a fountain of youth? The pink color of these microscopic halobacteria comes from the concentration of carotenoids they produce: anti-oxidants, necessary and beneficial for the balance of the human body, suggesting a possible ingredient in man's eternal quest to push back the boundaries of age. Equally essential components of an ecological harmony, halobacteria use their metabolism to fix carbon emitted into the atmosphere. Their sulfate-reducing powers, allowing them to degrade heavy metals, could play a role in the progressive de-pollution of the environment. Primary life or perpetual life, this organism tells a story of the power of the infinitely small.

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Oscillating on the inherent uncertainty of its survival, the halobacteria makes us, finally, spectators of its birth as well as its opposite. Is this the landscape of an original paradise, or that of a deserted world, where only the carefree life of the halobacteria persists? It seems to be the space where the duality of the two artists meet, where a dialogue between light and earth, horizontality and verticality, and dichotomous but complementary forces is born, and finally merges. 

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Made of local elements found in the environment of the Marais, the vegetal microcosm that frames the halobacteria invites to a new contemplation, similar to a Zen garden. Mirroring the pond, on the other side of the space, we perceive the forms of a stele, erected from salt topped with a plant composition like an ikebana, a Buddhist altar whose flowers would have given way to a mineral archaea relic. This miniature cosmos, while giving the historic barn a temple-like feel, exists in each of us like a mental mirage. A stone presides this silent and sacred laboratory; while a thin dead tree makes an impulse towards the sky. Beside it, we are similar—unaware but blissful witnesses of the cycle of life.

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