Vladimir Kanic

The Book of Waves Pt1

The Book of Waves is a series of bioart sculptures capable of producing oxygen equivalent to hundreds of trees while retaining carbon dioxide and curbing the effects of global climate change. As spectators exhale carbon dioxide, the living algae housed within the sculptures absorb it and convert it into oxygen while creating a cycle of life within its own micro ecosystem. While establishing an interactive symbiotic relationship between the art and the spectator based on the exchange of breath, the sculptures explore the relationship between human and non-human organisms and the ways of establishing cross-species communication. The Book of Waves sculptures are on display at the Abbozzo Gallery in Toronto from November 2021 to June 2022 and have been curated for Nuit Blanche TO 2022.

“I am interested in how the post-climate change life forms would look like and the ways they could encapsulate collective memories of our planet. When looking at our planet’s strata, we can perceive layers of rock, gas and oil as planetary memories. By burning fossil fuels, humans have been transforming those memories into pollution that caused global climate change and initiated sixth extinction. Algae have the capability to use that pollution as their food and transform the memories of Earth into their own bodies while giving them new life. While using algae-based biopolymers as my sculptural medium, I imagine my sculptures as post-climate change life forms in order to critique the rapid environmental destruction of our planet, one that might result in human extinction. The sculptures' material is significant to my experiences as a free diver originating from the island of Pag in Croatia. Breathing is my equivalent to remembering, and I am using diving as a tool of cognitive archeology in order to reach the memories of my ancestors living below the waves. By harvesting the algae and creating works of art with them, my own material language of the objects is created, one that speaks about my identity, ancestry and cultural heritage.”