miamilgrom

Undercurrents

// stainless steel, hand-blown glass, green micro-algae, honey combs, reed, silicone tube, water

// algae culture developed with Centrum Algatech

In Undercurrents natural filtration systems are used as a metaphor for the environmental contamination as well as personal cleansing and the process of absorbing grief. At its center are irregularly shaped tears made of glass and stainless steel, suspended in a site-specific installation that transforms the entire floor space into a construction site that reveals the various layers of the Earth through which water naturally filters. The installation is interwoven with the slow circulation of a green micro-algae that breaks down pollution, referring to symbiotic cycles, water crises and their associated physicality.

In Undercurrents, Milgrom works with a material assemblage that explores new relationships, changing meanings, or metaphors that depend on the position of the observer. The substance communicates with us, helps to shape the environment in which we live, and thus contributes to human and non-human experience. The artist works with the concept of filtration in an intuitive manner – in her piece, minerals, water, organic life, and the waste of civilization meet and interact in a fundamental process of maintenance that requires a great deal of time and cooperation. By transcending the duality of organic and inanimate matter, she attempts to bring experiences together, to engage in a kind of speculative game in which metals grow into wood and originally soft materials find themselves in heavy bodies. From classical antiquity until the eighteenth century, minerals and metals were believed to grow underground just like organic matter. In this and similar fictional notions, science blends with poetry and sometimes becomes incomprehensible, while nevertheless offering a vast range of limitless and undogmatic possibilities.
2024