ANGEL­I­CA MESI­TI: STILL LIFE

In Still Life, imag­i­na­tion and empir­i­cal obser­va­tion unite in con­tem­pla­tion of life’s inter­con­nect­ed­ness. Exquis­ite draw­ings and mod­els from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Melbourne’s Herbar­i­um col­lec­tion rep­re­sent artis­tic and sci­en­tif­ic tra­di­tions in which nat­ur­al organ­isms are depict­ed in iso­la­tion from their envi­ron­ment. These teach­ing tools con­trast with con­tem­po­rary art­works by eleven artists that cel­e­brate the com­plex­i­ties of nature, empha­sis­ing inter­de­pen­dence and shift­ing states of being. 

Focus­ing on sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ships and inter­species entan­gle­ments, these art­works con­sid­er the under­ground mycelial net­works that con­nect forests, the giant ter­mite mounds that pro­vide a home for mutu­al­is­tic com­mu­ni­ties, and the microor­gan­isms that inhab­it human bod­ies and are inte­gral to our existence. 

Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti is one of 11 artists in Still Life. Her work Over the Air and Under­ground, 2020, orig­i­nal­ly com­mis­sioned by the Busan Bien­nale 2020, turns her explo­ration of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and trans­la­tion to for­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion, car­ried through the liv­ing sys­tems beneath our feet and through the air around us. In the root struc­tures and growth net­works beneath forests, as well as through air­borne process­es, plant life is known to com­mu­ni­cate – to share infor­ma­tion about threats and pests, and to even dis­trib­ute sug­ar to enable the sur­vival of ​‘the com­mu­ni­ty’, which forester and author Peter Wohlleben calls ​‘social secu­ri­ty’. Like Dutch van­i­tas paint­ings of old – still life paint­ings remind­ing view­ers of mor­tal­i­ty – Over the Air and Under­ground is a med­i­ta­tive encounter that reminds us we are not sep­a­rate from the world around us.