Guided tour of the Exhibition of the Grand Prize Recipient of the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts

Guided tour of the exhibition Transformella: Cinis’ Forking [4.4.6.10.1] – Die Schützlinginnen and Neverlife in Symbolic Terrain  with the curator Tjaša Pogačar.

In 2021, the Grand Prize of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts was awarded to JP Raether for Protekto.x.x 5.5.5.1 Precipitation, which was undersigned by Protektorama, one of Raether’s constructed identities. Together they constitute a hybrid formation of authorship called aLifveForms that consists of many lines of life, among them also Transformellae. They first appeared in 2010 to research reproductive technologies and possibilities for reproductive futures beyond the horizon of ReproNormality.

Transformella is an Artificial Identity, a “SelfSister”, and an AlterIdentitarian aLifveForm. They are the first in the lifeline of the Transformellae. They forked into Transformella malor in 2015 and began to intervene in so-called Ikeality in the local stores, where home goods and family models are mass reproduced. Since then, they have appeared in various Ikealities in Berlin, Warsaw, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. In 2021, they departed from their older Self as an ashborn and necrotising Sinkamme, Transformella cinis.

A mixed reality of Cinis’ Forking [4.4.6.10.1] presents Transformella’s rituals in Ikeality and narrates their latest mutation into a new version of themselves – Transformella cinis. Bringing a much-needed intervention in the narratives and myths that underpin reactionary politics and increasing forces of retraditionalisation, Transformella weave a lifeline connecting reproductive and ecological concerns to communeer a metabolism of a habitable world.

Curator: Tjaša Pogačar.