OXYGEN PRODUCING LIVING SCULPTURES / THE GARDEN OF WAVES

Could you change the world just by breathing?

Vladimir Kanic’s living sculptures use spectators’ breath as food and convert it into oxygen while mitigating the effects of global climate change. The artist utilizes the biological processes of living algae to capture carbon dioxide, create oxygen, and purify the air from toxins. Made from organic biopolymers, the sculptures housing the living algae bring attention to global environmental problems while providing hope and solution for global climate change.

Vladimir’s sculptures question the relationship between human and non-human organisms while putting them in a symbiotic relationship in situ, enabling interspecies communication based on the exchange of gases – humans exhale carbon dioxide, and algae inhale it and convert it into oxygen. The interaction of spectators with living sculptures changes the art while transforming it into a time-based media piece that morphs in time, additionally raising questions about the binarity of life and death and the nature of consciousness.

The sculptures have won the InterAccess 2022 Media Prize and the Artist Project 2023 Career Launcher Award.

Photos by Natalie Logan / Garden of Waves Exhibition at InterAccess Gallery

Read the essay about my living sculptures written by Nicole Clouston, Ph.D.

NEXT EXHIBITIONS

July/August 2023 / Abbozzo Gallery Toronto

September 2023 / Nuit Blanche Toronto