Emma Akmakdjian, Maru Garcia, and Sanna Bucht-Akmakdjian

Miscible Interactions, 2021

Single-celled green algae, water, woven silk, plastic buoys

Miscible Interactions is a living sculpture of spirulina, or arthrospira platensis, a single-celled filamentous algae. The sculpture was created collaboratively by the artists and makers who each individually contributed an element of the work. The living culture of the algae grows alongside a hand-woven pattern that represents the structure of nereocystis luetkeana, a type of macro-algae found offshore along the coast of San Luis Obispo. The algae cultures are introduced to the tank at the onset of the exhibition and, with heat and light, will continue to grow and bloom throughout the course of the festival. Together, the micro and the macro weavings intertwine with one another, demonstrating the interplay between human culture and natural patterns and systems.

Emma Akmakdjian collaborates with scientists to translate oceanic climate data into interactive community workshops and installations. Her work is inspired by over six years of volunteer service for the Channel Islands National Park in California as well as her experience as a Scientific Scuba Diver. Her creative practice inquires how art can become a process of ecological and cultural restoration. Akmakdjian received her MFA from UCLA in Design | Media Arts and has a certificate in Leaders of Sustainability.

Maru García is a Mexican, LA-based artist/chemist working across art + science + environment. Her methodology combines laboratory and fieldwork tools from her background in plant chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry. Her use of media includes research, installations, performance, sculpture, and video, usually with the presence of organic matter to help understand the biological processes occurring in complex systems. Her areas of interest are biosystems, multispecies relations, and the capacity of living organisms (including humans) to act as remediators in contaminated sites. Her work highlights the importance of eco-aesthetics, in which relations are proposed as ways of building cultures of regeneration. At the same time, she questions the ways science and technology have influenced humans and more-than-humans within the natural world.

Susanna Bucht is a Swedish artist working in Los Angeles. Her primary medium is clay, but she experiments with various materials, including thread, sewing, and hand-building. Bucht’s highly detail-oriented work creates impressionable new designs in ceramics that push the technical limits of the material. She has had a love for drawing and building from the time she was very little, growing up in Sweden. After high school, she attended Basis, an art school in Stockholm, before moving to Los Angeles the following year, where she has taken ceramic courses intermittently for many years.