TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

[ir]reverent: Miracles on Demand recreates blood ‘miracles’ using Serratia marcescens, a microorganism that grows on bread and produces a blood-like pigment, prodigiosin. The installation features a bio-incubator modeled after a medieval Roman Catholic monstrance, a sacred vessel designed to display the Eucharist host. In the oculus of the monstrance, a bread wafer is inoculated with micro-droplets containing S. marcescens. Over two days, the microorganism incubates, causing the wafer to ‘bleed’ and recreating a blood ‘miracle on demand’ akin to historical accounts from antiquity to modern times.

Historically, blood miracles were used as anthropogenic currency to validate conquests, divine interventions, and anti-Semitic persecution. Microbiologists now attribute many of these phenomena to S. marcescens, a bacterium ubiquitous in soil and responsible for the pink residue often seen in showers.

This artwork interrogates the role of invisible microbial agents in shaping human history and belief systems. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza argued that miracles are not violations of natural laws but rather manifestations of gaps in human knowledge. By this view, miracles only seem extraordinary due to our limited understanding of nature’s complexity.

[ir]reverent invites audiences to confront the boundaries between science, faith, and historical narrative, revealing how epistemological gaps fuel wonder, spectacle and dogma. Through the 're-enactment' of a medieval practice, the work explores the delicate interplay between the visible and invisible forces that shape human perception and belief.