Micro-performativity and molecular sculpting, due to their invisibility to the naked eye, usually miss the observer, whos sight is glued to the forms of glassware, various holders, stirrers, wires, and other biotechnological tools necessary to maintain the vitality of culture in the artwork. The meaning of the artwork in which the drama of life unfolds is thus hung on a screen of shapes that obscure the artistic message.

The title of the exhibition I Told You It’s Alive, which encompasses the exhibited projects created at the artist residencies of the EMAP members in recent years, was chosen as an interjection in the countless controversies about the inclusion of living systems in artworks. This interjection is both an echo of the romantic re-examination of the manipulation of God's creation, which Mary Shelley so beautifully laid down in Western culture, as well as the scientific-deterministic assurance of Craig Venter's "I Tell You It’s Alive", who, as the author of the first synthetic organism, swears by the bioproduction of everything non-metallic in the future.

The non-affirmative form in the title is thus precisely that intermediacy that arises from the artworks created in the EMAP residences, which, with their poetic search for coexistence and co-evolution between forms of human and non-human life, open up a space where coexistence can be thought of in a non-exploitative balance.

The group show at Kapelica Gallery includes projects by following EMAP artists: Alizée Armet, Dorotea Dolinšek, Charlotte Jarvis with Dr. Patricia Saragüeta, Kasia Molga, Margherita Pevere, Marisa Satsia, Studio Above&Below.

I Told You It's Alive takes place from 28 November 2023 to 2 February 2024 at Kapelica Gallery / Kersnikova Institute in Ljubljana.