See Me

Exploring human and non-human inter/intra-actions, Katherine Bouleau is interested in the points where biology and art intersect, with a fascination for microscopic organisms including plankton and bacteria, and our ancient co-existence with them.

Event details

  • 12 January 2025 - 3 February 2025

    10:00-17:00 (GMT)

    Foyer Gallery, UCA Farnham, Falkner Road, Farnham, Surrey GU9 7DS

See Me

Believing that all organisms including human beings have agency and are critically interconnected and interdependent, Bouleau asserts that humans have been anthropocentrically conditioned, becoming increasingly disconnected from ecology and the needs of non-human beings, imposing our will on other beings/things, dominating their space, and tipping the balance of Earth’s delicate ecosystem, with devastating consequences.

It was recently discovered that some species of plankton are now efficiently filter-feeding microplastics from the oceanic water column - bigger organisms consume them, and so on, and on - tragically, microplastics have now become part of the oceanic/human food chain, with unknown, far-reaching consequences for all life forms on Earth. Plankton is at the bottom of our oceans’ food chain; it photosynthesises up to 50% of Earth’s oxygen, its skeletons locking away carbon for millennia, deep on the ocean bed. As oceans become more acidic, their skeletons dissolve, meaning that more carbon drifts freely in the water column. Often overlooked, these smallest of organisms are critical to all life on Earth, and we are entirely dependent upon them for our survival.

By enlarging their microscopic scale, and using natural and manmade materials, Bouleau intends for her abstract planktonic forms to peacefully dominate/disrupt human space, focusing our attention on them, forcing us to notice them, to connect with them – to see them. Bouleau relates these works to the theories of ecological ontologists/philosopher, James Bridle, Tim Morton, and Jane Bennett, who each reject anthropocentrism, the belief that humans are higher beings, more important than any other entity in the universe.

Acknowledgments

Curator: Dr Loucia Manopoulou
Senior Gallery Technician: Roger Prynn