Transformella, Cinis' Forking [4.4.6.10.1] – Die Schützlinginnen and Neverlife in Symbolic Terrain, 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, 2023/2024, installation view of the exhibition of the Grand Prize Winner at Ravnikar Gallery Space.
Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
In 2021, the Grand Prize of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts was awarded to JP Raether for Protekto.x.x 5.5.5.1 Precipitation, a complex installation which explored the materiality and sites of production of digital technologies, especially smartphones, and interrogated the ways they ”possess” us. The work was undersigned by Protektorama, one of Raether’s constructed identities. Together they constitute a hybrid formation of authorship called aLifveForms that consists of many lines of life, among them also Transformellae. They first appeared in 2010 to research reproductive technologies and possibilities for reproductive futures beyond the horizon of ReproNormality.
A mixed reality of Cinis’ Forking [4.4.6.10.1] presented Transformella’s rituals in Ikeality and narrated their latest mutation into a new version of themselves – Transformella cinis. Bringing a much-needed intervention in the narratives and myths that underpin reactionary politics and increasing forces of retraditionalisation, Transformella weave a lifeline connecting reproductive and ecological concerns to communeer a metabolism of a habitable world.
Curator: Tjaša Pogačar.