Artistic collective initiated in January 2021 during a residency at the LAccolade Foundation in Paris With Charlotte Gautier van Tour
Les Matribiotes is an artistic collective that we initiated in January 2021 during a residency at the LAccolade Foundation in Paris. Our artistic collective aims to become aware of and take care of the microorganisms with which we share our bodies, more specifically our intestinal microbiota. We want to create performances, sculptures and banquets of symbiosis, works of art that interfere and thus rethink the links to the living within us and outside of us. Our project is holistic and includes ecological axes such as the development of biodiversity (especially microbial) and the use of materials with low environmental impact. It also has a strong collaborative dimension in the establishment of inter-species alliances, and the fact of forming a community through the invention of new practices related to food and the body. We are going to collaborate with local artisans (ceramists) and would like to meet microbiologists to discuss the role of the intestinal microbiota and bacteria present throughout our body.
Are we really individuals? According to the Matribiotes, we are holobionts (from the Greek holo, "everything", and bios, "life"), or superorganisms, that is to say a set composed of an animal or vegetable organism and micro-organisms that it hosts. The microorganisms inhabiting the host (animal or plant) constitute what is called the microbiota. We are interested in fermentation because fermentation is the work of bacteria and fermented food contains a lot of prebiotics and probiotics necessary for the health of our intestinal microbiota. In the history of mankind up to now, fermentation represents culture. The Matribiotes are passers-by between different species. They combine with bacteria to re-seed the human body and diversify their internal flora.
Our utensils, fermentation pots and gourds will each time be made with soil gleaned from the region and shaped with a specialized craftsman. By inventing new artistic, societal and culinary practices that promote symbiosis and locality, they hope to sow other possibilities that would strengthen the links between all the living.
