Exhibition Title: “Weaving Black Nests Under The Skin”
Venue: Urban Nation Gallery
Bulowstrasse 97, Berlin, Germany
Dates: 06/11/2025 - 29/03/2026
Weaving black nests under the skin is a philosophical exploration of inter-beings, arthropod-like organisms, and their embryonic fluctuations. Blending scientific inquiry and hybridisation, Becerra’s research investigates intermediate states of existence: between gestation and decay.
Developed during her residency at Fresh A.I.R., Weaving black nests under the skin questions the illusion of separateness, embracing cyclicality as a fundamental condition of life. Within nature, this conceptual coordinate exists both in the gestational form of organisms and, on the other end of the spectrum, in the rotting stages of biological matter.
The installation unfolds as a suspended network of prosthetic beings composed of blown glass, steel, organic debris, silicone membranes, motors, threads, resin, and pigmented fluids. Arthropoidal and vessel-like morphologies emerge from these organic architectures: skeletal extensions intertwined with soft membranes and threadlike circuits carrying fluid through translucent bodies.
Encapsulated fragments of matter -trapped within resin or suspended in liquid- echo the notion of life within life, where remnants of existence persist and regenerate through new material configurations. These hybrid entities pulsate and circulate matter, embodying both decay and renewal. Their porous anatomies evoke a choreography of transformation, where the boundaries between organism and machine, matter and memory, begin to dissolve.
Through this project, Becerra reflects on the cyclical conditions of existence, proposing that gestation and decomposition are not antagonistic opposites but complementary forces within the same continuum. Emerging from these reflections, suspended prosthetic beings blur the borders between biological inevitability and speculative potential. By imagining new kin makings with the oddkin, Becerra seeks to inspire, at least for a while, alternative worldviews in which linear narratives of life, progress, and death yield to hybrid, cyclical forms of existence.
Weaving black nests under the skin invites viewers to consider life as a process of perpetual co-participation, where matter endlessly weaves itself into new forms of being.
Text: Lena Becerra