Performing Livelier Biosecurity in Human–Candida Artistic Encounters

Abstract

In the face of epidemics and pandemics, biosecurity measures have become one of the mediation points of interspecies relations. To tackle microbial diseases, biosecurity often aims to protect the health of those life forms that are deemed valuable by eradicating or walling out those considered risky. However, recent studies of epidemiological situations demonstrate that culling, isolation, and eradication are not always the most efficient ways to ensure the health of various living beings. Healthier living, therefore, demands far more nuanced engagements between a variety of beings in which microbials are neither excluded nor ultimately included. Some of the science and technology experts call such an approach more-than-human biopolitics or a livelier biosecurity.

In keeping with this perspective, this paper discusses exhibition 'The Unsettling Eros of Contact Zones and Other Stories' by Tarsh Bates — the exhibition that features potentially pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. Working with the microbe which can be dangerous for human health, the artist in this show is compelled to introduce a set of specific biosecurity measures to guarantee the safety of the audiences. At the same time, the show, with its artworks, literally and symbolically welcomes the potential pathogen into its space; instead of excluding the yeast, the exhibition rather facilitates its flourishing. Via this arrangement, oscillating between biosecurity as control and the prospering of Candida albicans, Bates' works provide viewers with affective interactions with the yeast and a specific spatial perspective that, as this article argues, enact more-than-human biopolitics and a livelier biosecurity.