PUBLIC TALK: HumanThrush entanglements: Homo sapiens as a multi-species ecology

Human bodies are a mammal/fungal/bacterial/insect/viral ecology which we rarely acknowledge: a normal human body is said to be composed of over 1 trillion cells, of which only about 10% are animal. This artistic research project explores what it means to be human when we recognise our bodies as a multi-species ecology. I focus on the intimate and fraught contact zones of biology, aesthetics, culture and care between Homo sapiens and Candida albicans, the single celled opportunistic fungal pathogen commonly known as thrush. Understanding and reinterpreting physical and sensual interactions is essential to explore embodied interspecies encounters and the material effects of human/non-human boundary formation. This discussion positions humans and thrush as co-evolved companion species involved in a biopolitical entanglement that is gendered, erotic and often ruthless.

Tarsh Bates completed a Master of Science (Biological Arts) in 2012. She has worked variously as a pizza delivery driver, a fruit and vegetable stacker, a toilet paper packer, a researcher in compost science and waste management, a honeybee ejaculator, an art gallery invigilator, a bookkeeper, a car detailer, and a life drawing model. Tarsh is currently a candidate for a PhD (Biological Arts) at SymbioticA UWA where her current research is concerned with gentleness, the aesthetics of interspecies relationships and the human as a multispecies ecology. She is particularly enamoured with Candida albicans.