In RHIZOMORPHS & CHIMAERAS, mysterious underground networks unfold, where mythical hybrid creatures take shape in the shadows. Through an artistic practice that moves between video, photography, sound and sculpture, Susanne Fagerlund creates worlds where the boundaries between nature and technology dissolve, shift and re-emerge in new guises.
In her work, sculptural landscapes are woven together, with unexplored and conceivable visions of the future that speak of coexistence and nature’s resilience and ability to create networks for cooperation.
Rhizomes are underground rootstocks of certain plants that store nutrients and function as survival organs. The term is also used in philosophy to describe a non-hierarchical, network-based structure as a model for understanding a society that develops through interaction with each other. Rhizomatic in philosophy is a metaphor borrowed from botany by the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
A chimaera is a mythological creature composed of several different species. But it is also a scientific concept in biology. In that case, a chimaera is an organism that contains cells from two genetically distinct individuals. In botany, it refers to a plant in which two different tissues have grown together.
RHIZOMORPHS & CHIMAERAS reminds us that all life is interwoven, entangled, and inextricably linked. The essence of chimerism permeates everything, allowing boundaries to dissolve and something new to take shape.