HAPPY GUT FEELING
2025Solo Exhibition
Video work Lactic and acetic acid bacteria (LAB) & (AAB), and yeast
We humans live in interdependence with the organisms that inhabit our bodies. What we eat directly impacts the well-being of the microbes that live in our body, and in turn, our own well-being. If they are happy, we are happy! How then, can we design nutrition from the perspective of a community rather than for an individual species?
Fungi, bacteria, and viruses outnumber our human cells. The largest population of microorganisms within the body lives in our gut and shapes not only physical health but also mental well-being. In fact, 95% of the body's serotonin —the “happiness chemical”— is made in the digestive tract, indicating that feeding the microbes is, in essence, feeding our happiness.
One way to nourish these communities of microorganisms is through fermented foods. While fermentation practices are often considered from the perspective of food preservation, they are also a way to transform food into new forms of energy. Some fermented foods, such as kombucha, generate a symbiotic culture that consists of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), acetic acid bacteria (AAB), and yeast. Coincidentally, these are the same type of microorganisms that live in our gut and play a vital role in our overall health, making evident the connection between fermented foods and a happy gut.
HAPPY GUT FEELING explores the link between gut microbes, diet, and mental health through an artistic installation.Here, fermentation is used both as a tool and a metaphor to talk about microbes since it is understood as a process made by and for microorganisms and a way to observe these invisible life forms with the naked eye. The exhibition highlights a relationship to food as a relation of mutual care for the microorganisms within us, by rethinking and re-enacting traditions of preservation and ways to be self-sufficient, bridging eco-feminism and self-care.
GIANT MOTHER + “GUTvsMOTHER”
Site–specific installation
Silver foil, live symbiotic culture
150 x 150 cm
The works reveal the visual similarities between fermented tea byproducts and the human gut.
The video work shows both images from fermented matter, microscopic images from a sample of a kombucha mother
as well as footage from an endoscopy of a human gut.
Video work GUTvsMOTHER
CARBONATION F2 & ORGAN JAR
Live symbiotic culture, glass, tube, metal attachements Inspired by fermentation and medical preservation processes,
these works explore how bodies—human and microbial—are archived and remembered.
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SMILEY BOWL
Handblown glass vessel 12x25.5cm
Handblown fermentation vessels that grow symbiotic cultures into smiley faces,
echoing facial masks and holistic self-care across species.
SMILEY FRAME
Transparent glass, dried symbiotic culture, metal attachments
30,5 x 46 cm
Dried, fermented tea scoby framed between glass, preserving microbial transformation as an organic imprint.
This project was made in collaboration with the kombucha producer and medical researcher Ash Talukder
and his company ICHA, the leading researcher at the Nutrition-Gut-Brain Interactions Research Centre (NGBI)
at the University of Örebro, Robert Jan Brummer, and and Tiffany Abitbol, a specialist in nanocellulose and bio-based materials at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne.
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