Show me your Blaschko | Ștefania Iakab & Ana Messer

Ștefania Iakab and Ana Messer work individually, but sometimes their practices meet, having as a common point the use for sculptural structures of atypical materials that evoke surfaces and textures (natural or synthetic fur, feathers, grass). Ana is concerned with the translation of emotional trauma in a physical sense, with the somatization of inner feelings. Recently, her favorite theme is the human body with its beauty and imperfections. Stefania problematizes the relationship between human and non-human beings, between natural/organic and synthetic/industrial.

The collaborative project Show me your Blaschko started from the understanding of epithelial tissue as a surface whose appearance is determined by its own internal mechanisms that regulate its function and appearance, but at the same time, external factors can disrupt the rules. Blaschko lines (named after the German dermatologist Alfred Blaschko) appear on the human skin in the form of strongly pigmented curves or zigzags. Just like animal fur patterns, human skin also has its own patterns that only emerge in rare cases.

The two artists proposed a performative intervention in which the texture of the epidermis was recomposed from fragments of animal and plant origin and then transposed into a video projection. The audience was invited to intervene to break the rhythm of applying the fragments as originally set. The epidermis of the hybrid being was a result of the controlled process, but also of free and spontaneous interventions. 

Curator: Maria Orosan-Telea

*The action was a temporary insert in the Hyperesthesia exhibition of the Avantpost group.