Guts of My Guts

Organelles, 2023
Tarlatan, dried bacterial cellulose, embroidered salvaged cotton thread
105 x 52 cm

Organelles (detail), 2023
Tarlatan, dried bacterial cellulose, embroidered salvaged cotton thread
105 x 52 cm

Untitled (Scoby Study from Without Us the System Fails), 2022.
Vintage linen, dried bacterial cellulose, salvaged frame.
100 x 77cm

Guts of My Guts, 2023
Vintage linen, dried bacterial cellulose, embroidered deadstock thread
75 x 50cm

Guts of My Guts (detail), 2023
Vintage linen, dried bacterial cellulose, embroidered deadstock thread
75 x 50cm

Eat Me, 2023
Gifted antique raw handwoven Turkish cotton, dried bacterial cellulose, embroidered deadstock thread 40 x 22 cm

Passenger VI, 2023
Salvaged glass vitrine and chrome stand, live bacterial cellulose and Geburtsvorbereitungstee tea culture, crocheted dead stock thread
Size Variable

Passenger VI (detail), 2023
Salvaged glass vitrine and chrome stand, live bacterial cellulose and Geburtsvorbereitungstee tea culture, crocheted dead stock thread
Size Variable

In the Bones of Our House, 2023
Salvaged antique floorboard, crocheted salvaged cotton thread
Size Variable

In the Bones of Our House (detail), 2023
Salvaged antique floorboard, crocheted salvaged cotton thread
Size Variable

Untitled (Evolutionary Trees or Boobs) III, 2023
Gifted hand-made paper from the estate of Christiane Wüstinger, watercolor marker
45 x 25 cm

Untitled (Evolutionary Trees or Boobs) II, 2023
Gifted hand-made paper from the estate of Christiane Wüstinger, watercolor marker
45 x 25 cm

Untitled (Evolutionary Trees or Boobs) I, 2023
Gifted hand-made paper from the estate of Christiane Wüstinger, watercolor marker
45 x 25 cm

Photos by Anna Katrin Elmer

Guts of My Guts
Show text by Julia Wolf

Monica C. LoCascio’s ‘Guts of My Guts’ at HALLE13 engages in a critical materialist exploration, presenting symbiotic networks that challenge and expand upon established notions of identity, corporeality, epigenetics, trauma, and memory. Coinciding with LoCascio’s personal evolution into motherhood, the exhibition challenges the orthodox notion that knowledge is merely the offspring of impersonal observation. It proposes, instead, a visceral form of ‘knowledging’ born of tangible, material engagement with the cosmos, as conceptualised by Karen Barad (2007). This philosophy is materialised through living installations, agents of change composed of bacterial cellulose, scientific paraphernalia repurposed for artistic expression, and threads woven from remnants of past lives.

Informed by the doctrine of "Symbiogenesis" and the pioneering work of Lynn Margulis, LoCascio’s collection ponders the transient borders of selfhood and the profound influence of microbiology in constructing ecologies of the self. LoCascio’s assemblage defies the conventional, linear narratives or definitive conclusions; it embodies a complex, paradoxical structure that is at once chaotic and intelligible, continuously weaving the fabric of reality.

As a result, LoCascio’s work is an assertion of ‘code’ reimagined: a defiance of the strict genetic script dictating biological inheritance, advocating instead for a lexicon of courage, playfulness, intimacy, and care that defies binary categories. It is a call to recognise a multiplicity of narratives and a collaborative ethos, positioning the self as an integral component of a larger ecological matrix. This stance is a provocative challenge to the techno-capitalist paradigm, urging a reevaluation of interdependence as a critical modality for contemporary existence and innovation.

Works cited:
Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press (2007).

Lynn Margulis, “Words as Battle Cries: Symbiogenesis and the New Field of Endocytobiological,” Bioscene 40, no. 9 (1990): 673-677.