Giovanni Chiamenti’s artistic practice focuses on the search for alternatives to the survival of the planet and coexistence between species, overcoming the anthropocentric era. From the beginning, careful observation of nature and landscape formed the basis of his research, initially expressed through the use of natural processes that shape the artistic form. Subsequently, Chiamenti deepened his investigation into materials, techniques and natural processes, analyzing how technology often imitates natural phenomena in its attempt to anthropize the world. An example of this approach is the Marbleau series (2019), composed of imaginary cartographies that create ambiguity between digital post-production and the technical realization of the work, created manually with the use of engravers on print.

This analysis of materials and processes has progressively led the artist to delve deeper into the sciences, combining a humanistic approach with the analysis of the anthropic impact on the planet. This has generated an interest in the adaptation of living beings to increasingly extreme environmental conditions. Currently, Chiamenti's practice operates at the intersection of art, biology, biotechnology and chemistry, promoting a constant exchange with experts in those disciplines. These collaborations were started during his residency at the NARS Foundation in New York, where he had the opportunity to come into contact with the Community Biolab Genspace and deepen his studies on the development of bioplastics and on life forms capable of metabolizing waste produced by human activity. A project that emerged from this is Interspecies Kin, presented for the first time at Spazio Volta (Bergamo), which imagines a "Plastocene" future in which hybridized animals and plants are able to integrate human-produced microplastics into their evolutionary process , also becoming partially composed of plastic. This perspective is already underway, as evidenced by the discovery of marine fungi that feed on microplastics on the seabed. Furthermore, the artist has developed an organic glossary of neologisms that describe possible future hybridizations between species and plastic residues, translated into fascinating ceramic and thermoplastic creations, also shown at MIart. An example of such creations is Πλαστιλεῖμμα (Plastileimma), a series of works in ceramic and thermoplastic, whose title represents a neologism coined by the artist which can be translated as "descendant of mouldability".

Moving between science fiction and fantasy, but based on in-depth scientific studies, Chiamenti's practice takes on relevance in the current context for its ability to imagine a new era of symbiosis between man and nature. However, the scenario proposed by the artist also seems to emphasize the dominion of human beings over the natural world, suggesting that it is nature that must adapt to the damage caused by man. In fact, Chiamenti imagines new balances of anthropocentric sustainability, which could discourage corrective interventions to achieve a more equitable distribution of spaces and resources.

Join our exclusive conversation with Giovanni Chiamenti x COEVAL:

Can you tell us more about your childhood background and how this led you to be a multidisciplinary artist?

I lived my childhood surrounded by nature. My parents always lived on the hills, and living surrounded by the noises or the silences of plants and animals developed in me early a sense of belonging and serenity within that environment. Even now, after long periods of frenzy and chaos spent in large metropolises for work, I feel the need to return to that dimension to breathe and start meditating again. In my family then, I have had a multidisciplinary education from a very young age, from classical art to contemporary art through music as well as history. My father is a pediatrician and my mother an architect while my paternal grandfather was a carpenter. Manual skill has always been part of my feeling and being in the world, but especially hand touching everything around me.

How did your observation of nature and the landscape shape your practice as an artist?

By listening to and imitating natural phenomena through materials and human techne, I began to structure a language that to this day continues to mutate by accumulating new information and insights from the places I visit or the natural phenomena I stop to observe.

Can you explain the concept of sympoiesis and symbiogenesis and how it relates to your work?

As Donna Haraway (Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press., pag. 58) explains, “Sympoiesis is a simple word; it means ‘making-with.’ Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing. In the words of the Inupiat computer ‘world game,’ earthlings are never alone. That is the radical implication of sympoiesis. Sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. It is a word for "worlding-with, in company.”

Symbiogenesis is an evolutionary mechanism caused by hereditary symbiosis. Symbiogenesis theories were introduced in early twentieth-century Russia. They were excluded from the Modern Synthesis that advanced a selectionist account of evolution, and were only reintroduced by Margulis, from the 1960s onward. Whereas the classical interpretation of evolution emphasizes competition as the main force behind evolution, Margulis emphasizes cooperation.

I believe these two terms are complementary in emphasizing the need for a change of course in our education. Humanity has to get into a direct relationship with other species and the Earth to learn new mechanisms of reciprocity and thus create a more cohesive world. In recent years I have tried to make my work more choral, involving professionals from different fields in order to open myself to diversity, to listening, with the perspective of broadening my gaze but also that of the public.

How have you explored the intersection of natural processes and artistic techniques in your artwork?

I began by studying synthetic materials that simulated and imitated natural aspects and processes, such as das, silicones, resins, plexiglass, 3d printing and then ended up in recent years studying more in detail the firing techniques of raku ceramics, also using glazes made from metals that with sunlight go through a modification process that leads them to partial or total oxidation over time. Since 2022 I have begun an in-depth study of biodegradable plastics, thanks to my residency in New York, starting with natural polymers found in the oceans.

Could you talk more about your Marbleau series and how it tests the ability of technique to understand and simulate nature?

Marbleau is a neologism I coined and comes from marble in English and eau in French. The idea behind this new word is to represent a crystallization of liquids, but also to map a surface that is in constant motion and through the photographic shot is petrified. This analysis leads us beyond the mere represented subject in order to make a much more intense pattern emerge, which is to be found in the details of the finished and printed project. In the process of creation, that is by carving upon the surface, the artist elaborates imaginary cartographies that appear to be digital post-production unless someone gets close enough to see the handmade marks. Thanks to the technique used, what is micro, which is enlargements of portions of water or ice, becomes macro.

What sparked your interest in the sciences and how do you incorporate biology, biotechnology, and chemistry into your artistic practice?

I think what has sparked my growing interest in science is the fact that every discovery in science is immediately refutable, from the moment someone proves that the previous one is no longer reliable for given reasons. There is nothing predetermined and definitive, but everything can change and be rewritten endlessly potentially. I find myself very much in this dimension, and I think it is this attitude that has directed me toward interdisciplinarity, which I have long felt the need for. I started by getting interested on my own in topics related to biology and geology and then began to build relationships with professionals, in the fields of biotechnology and chemistry, who enabled me to read more consciously a range of data that was difficult for me to comprehend.

Can you tell us more about your experience at the NARS Foundation and the Community Biolab Genspace? How did they influence your research on bioplastics and adaptation to extreme environments?

In January 2022, I arrived at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn thanks to the support of the Italian Council grant. The project I had decided to carry out during my residency was to focus on the adaptation of species to the microplastics now present in the deep sea through the use of synthetic materials from fossil sources, of which America is one of the largest producers in the world. During my stay in New York I got in touch, thanks to Elisa Gutiérrez of NARS, with Oscar Salguero researcher and curator of artists' books focused on posthuman and interspecism and with the community biolab Genspace in which I did a workshop on diy bioplastics. Thanks to the dialogue activated with the lab I began to develop my first bioplastics from chitosan and kappa carrageenan, thus incorporating alternatives to conventional plastics within the project. Afterwards, the director of Genspace introduced me to Kyle Frischkorn, a marine microbiologist specializing in oceanography, who opened the world to me about the latest discoveries in science regarding the adaptation of species to microplastics in the oceans.

Could you explain the Interspecies Kin project and its connection to the concept of a "Plastocene"?

The Interspecies Kin project represents the creation of an archive of species that could develop in our oceans, in a not-so-distant future, as a result of hybridization between the animal and plant worlds, but also of a possible mutation due to the incorporation of man-made microplastics in their tissues. This new cycle of works focuses on the deep sea, areas that are not directly accessible to humans and can only be explored by machines and robots, but which we have nevertheless managed to pollute through microplastics, oil and chemicals. The works have been made by combining raku ceramics with bioplastic parts and synthetic materials. Within the project, the biodegradable plastics (derived from chitosan and kappa carrageenan) represent an ecological alternative to conventional plastics, while the synthetic materials depict the consequences of pollution on nature and embody the evolutions of species that are already taking place. Despite having a strong sci-fi and dystopian component, the theme is linked to reality through a comparative study in the fields of microbiology and geology. In recent years, in fact, bacteria (e.g. Ideonella sakaiensis) and fungi (e.g. Aspergillus, Penicicillium, Aspergillus sakaiensis) capable of deteriorating or assimilating microplastics have been studied; the term plastiglomerate was coined to indicate a formation due to the mixing and subsequent melting of plastic waste with natural materials such as fragments of basaltic lava, sand, shells, wood and corals. These examples demonstrate how the natural world is spontaneously reacting to microplastic pollution and suggest that the solution to the problem could come not only from human intervention, but directly from microorganisms.

How do you see the integration of human-produced microplastics into the evolutionary process of animals and plants? What are the implications of this phenomenon?

I believe that my current solo exhibition at ArtNoble Gallery in Milan entitled "The Metabolic Era" explains very well my thoughts about these phenomena. We live in a transitional era, and humanity's overproduction of plastic has now reached a point of no return, so living creatures, including ourselves, are mutating and integrating this element within their bodies to adapt to an increasingly polluted environment. All living organisms have been or will be forced to metabolize these plastic wastes in order to survive. The true implications of this phenomenon will likely be seen by future generations as this cyborg-like evolution has just begun.

Can you discuss your new organic glossary of neologisms that describe future hybridizations between species and plastic residues? How did it inspire your ceramic and thermoplastic creations?

Coming from a classical background, the etymology of words has always been very important to me. Scientific nomenclature in particular derives from Greek and Latin, and so over the years I have played a lot with neologisms by also going to name my sculptures through hybridization between names of plant or animal organisms and adjectives chosen by me that would bring back to a particular aspect of the sculptural form I shaped. To this latest series of raku and thermoplastic ceramic sculptures, dating from 2023, I wanted to attribute the title Πλαστιλεῖμμα (Plastileimma), which could be translated as "descended from moldability" and is derived from the words πλαστός: moldable, moldable, invented, pretended and λεῖμμα: remnant, residue, descent. Since these are two materials that can be shaped by hand and with the help of water, it seemed to me the etymology of the two words could be a return to the original element from which these creatures came.

How do you balance the line between science fiction and scientific studies in your practice? What is the role of imagination in envisioning a new era of man/nature symbiosis?

The theory behind my projects usually rests on the real, i.e., established scientific studies/phenomena or discoveries of recent years still in their embryonic stage, while the formal part remains in this sci-fi dimension in which I transport the viewer into an imagineering dimension. I believe that imagination plays a major role in foreseeing and envisioning a new era of symbiosis between human and nature, after all, the visionary thinking of many 20th century scientists, philosophers, and anthropologists who were initially seen as wicked has led us to reflect on the urgency of these issues and the need for a change in the anthropocentric vision.

Can you expand on your vision of anthropocentric sustainability and its implications for spaces and resources? What are your thoughts on remedial intervention in the context of this vision?

I believe that the path of ecocentrism, together with bioeconomics and degrowth theory, should be the way forward for anthropocentric "sustainability." An environmentalism in which actions are determined from a feeling of care and communion with the environment, understanding the evolution of the whole environment as a source of salvation not only for humanity, but also for other life forms. A future for our planet can only be envisioned if we relinquish our power over nature and begin to identify ourselves as one of the billions of agents in the ecosystem and not the privileged and overriding figure.

How do you approach collaborations with other multidisciplinary artists, and what is the impact they have on your work?

I consider collaboration and confrontation with others to be crucial for personal enrichment and growth in my own journey. I would like to go back to the days of the historical avant-gardes and when artists, finding themselves in certain positions, formed groups. Today we live in a dimension where it is only the individual, one's self-referentiality, one's ego that counts. My outlook is constantly changing, and the more I surround myself with people who are open to dialogue, who are not afraid to express their perplexities to you or to be robbed of their knowledge, the more skillfully I store new information and process a language that I could not articulate before.

How do you see the relationship between art and technology evolving in the future? Are there any particular advancements or trends that you find particularly exciting or promising in your field?

I am not an expert in the field, but I do believe that technology has already changed the way we experience art. It is easier to view a work or exhibition through the screen of a smartphone, and certainly this has made art much more accessible even to those who cannot afford to travel to form their own gaze. But can we really talk about accessibility? What judgment can we make of something that has only been seen through digitally post-produced images? How can one experience and feel an installation, be it aural, olfactory, tactile? In time you will see that we will get there as well. As for the evolution of AI and how robots will replace human workers, I think there will be great unknowns for creatives in the near future and we will see the rise of new frontiers in the way art is presented and experienced. Will creativity and genius remain human prerogatives? Who knows...

A letter to your future self.

Don't hesitate! You will be divisive, but consistent.