Human- bacterial affairs

These interactive workshops allowed the public to experience their own cutaneous microbiome (micro-organisms that live on and in our skin) in a haptic -visual/olfactive- and intellectual reflection about our ubiquitous relationships with this part of ourselves.

Each of us is a multiplicity -a unity that is multiple in itself- bacteria, fungi, archaea, human. We have rhizomic (in the philosophical meaning) relationships with our microbiome that involve creative, adaptive, symbiotic or parasitic entangled evolution. That is why we are planets (Somos planetas), those microorganisms living from us, protecting us, or destroying us. Specific to each of us, our microbiome is part of our identity and the result of an (unconscious) mutual choice, linked to the chemical compounds present on/in our skin. we e hate it, because it shows what we want to hide, our smell, our animality.

 Participants chose a piece of fabric allowing microorganisms growth, and place it on their body, under their clothes, on the stomach, forearm, etc. l presented some scientific data on the cutaneous human microbiome, showing that microbiome acts in wounds recovery, protection against dermal diseases, and, especially dermal lactobacillus, in the immune system.

Once done, inoculated fabrics (including mine) were stored in sterile plastic bags, as well as a control (non-inoculated fabric called AIR). A week later,  the colonies initiated from this inoculation were visible and studied using a digital microscope.

Participants triturated vegetables with their hands to initiate a lactofermentation using their own lactobacillus.

 During this multisensorial activity, surrounded by vegetable smells, we spoke about love, care, protection, beauty, exchange with other species. For the exhibition, I transferred each microbiome on plaster molds of a part of my body, and we tasted human lactofermented vegetables.