Valeria Solari

Algae Bloom

2024 · Installation · 160 × 100 × 100 cm

Algae Bloom is an installation emerging from close observation of microalgae species collected from the Panke river in Berlin. Living organisms, water, and biopolymer become both material and metaphor, a suspended net of green threads that grows, intertwines, and adapts within its glass environment.

The work departs from the artist’s study of microalgae from the Panke river, organisms that, once introduced into a glass flask with river water, begin forming their own ecosystem. Structures emerge through multiplication, intertwining, and adaptation, mirroring the quiet intelligence of microscopic life finding its way in a fluid environment.

Algae Bloom materializes symbolic and symbiotic relationships: the algae do not simply inhabit the sculpture, they become it. Brown algae biopolymer, spirulina, and living microalgae suspended in Panke river water, the piece exists in continuous transformation, never quite the same twice.

The work explores the connection between living matter as form and as metaphor, asking what it means to cultivate rather than construct.

Materials

Brown algae biopolymer, spirulina, microalgae, Panke river water, glass flask

Exhibition

2024 Wasserarchive, Bardo Projektraum