A garden for a fish, 2019-?
research project
a garden for a fish is a metaphor and a materiality. It is a research venture that revolves around a fish – a fish called Danio rerio in scientific nomenclature or zebrafish in everyday language – a fish that became quite popular as a vertebrate model organism in the last decades.
In a garden of a fish, the zebrafish likewise plays the role of a model organism - but not just the fish, also the garden. Fish and garden form a continuous prototype that invites artistic and scientific research methods for a dance. It is a field of the sensual as well as the conceptual and mixes aesthetic with epistemic practices.
“Garden” serves as a method, a metaphor and as envisaged physical outcome. It is a defined area in constant transformation, in which many actors and agencies, human and non-human are involved. Gardening stands for a practice that inevitably focuses attention on interrelationships and processes and sharpens the senses for the permanent intra-actions (to speak in Karen Barad's terminology) that shape beings. A garden is something that has to be cared for.
18. Januar 2019: the first zebrafish arrive at my home
garden_no_fish
exploring possible garden configurations, May 2022, Zentrum Fokus Forschung
my living room is transforming,
the fish garden is evolving
April 2023, Vienna