Mural by Women, Mitochondrial Wall
xx RESIDENCIES
Argentina and Slovenia / 2016
Work in progress
We are hosting artist Laura Olalde from
Argentina, who invites you to participate in
creating a collective wall painting.
Walls in cities can be the voice of their
inhabitants. As cell walls, they are alive and
they express the changes in their environment.
Mitochondrial Wall is an open and permeable
project for the women in Ljubljana and it
consists of the realization of a collective mural
painting representing a “molecular landscape”
with a focus on mitochondria, an organelle
that has its own genetic information that
passes through maternal heritage.
In the 80’s, studies in mitochondrial DNA
done by Alan Wilson, a geneticist from the
University of California, determined that the
first humans on Earth came from Africa, from
a unique African mother. These conclusions
were polemical because they touched upon
matters such as Identity and Phylogenetics.
This molecule, called the “mitochondrial Eve”
is fundamental for maternal filiation, because
100% of DNA comes from the maternal line
this way, a faster path to reaching the common
origins of Homo sapiens. At this point, and
by immersing ourselves in this complex molecular landscape that can be read as
a map of origins as well, we can reflect on
the concepts of life and identity that have
changed facing the new techno-scientific
paradigm, with the transition from biology to
molecular biology.
The Concept of Life is now
circumscribed not only in our bodies but in
our molecules, a new political device around
which the biopolitical practices are now
organized.
As a metaphor of mitochondrial heritage,
the mural action is proposed as the desire for
of a symbolic legacy between women who live
in and visit the City of Ljubljana from one to
other edition of the City of Women Festival,
that the Mural by Women painting can grow as
a meeting point activity in future editions of
the Festival.
In English.
Free of charge.
Finishing with an opening of the mural with which we are also closing the 22nd Festival of Contemporary Arts - City of Women.
Production and Organization: City of Women, KUD Mreža, Gallery Alkatraz, A Gesamtkunstwerk Metelkova/Urban
art project.
Supported by Fondo Metropolitano.
