Eva Petrič: IN between UNIVERSES – art intervention during EGU2015

Eva Petrič, the artist invited by EGU2015 to give an artistic presentation on a voyage through scales, has been fascinated by the systems which appear in nature and govern and intertwine us on many levels, from nano to expo. “As we look upwards into the ‘stellar sky’, we find ourselves at the same time part of ‘inner cellular worlds’, caught in lace compositions, the delicate webs that tie us together and make us a part of a web in the world-wide intercellular stellar webs,” explains Eva Petrič.

2015 marks the beginning of the seventh decade of CERN, where the World Wide Web was initiated 25 years ago. “My web-like lace assemblages composed of hundreds of vintage lace and crochet hand-made pieces, of thousands of knots that tie the wishes, memories and connections of their creators, owners or recipients, is my homage to the fundamental research of studying the components of matter and the forces holding them together,” says Eva Petrič. In her art she is inspired by studies of these collisions and of particles emerging from them, explaining not only the subatomic world but extrapolating it to the expo level, explaining our universe.

“What are the borders of the body? Can one say that stars are also bodies, living organisms composed of cells and appearing to our eyes with the help of a telescope as one big cell?” asks the artist. Her lace assemblages at the EGU2015 are inspired by NASA and ESA images of stars as well as the Medical Faculty of Ljubljana University’s images of cells. “Both types of images appear very similar to me, only differing in scale, extending from nano to expo level. My lace constellations thus visualize, materialize the networks, which constitute single cells as well as entire bodies. The structure of the cell appears as a lace doily does, existing independently for itself but at the same time equally existing fully intertwined in a larger network of doilies comprising yet another larger system, on a larger scale, this phenomenon occurring in all states and on all scales.”

With her interactive and ongoing art presentation, the artist hopes to permeate into the borders of pas¬sers by, thus inspiring them “to participate and become part of the phenomenon of webbing, which permeates and governs the world on all scales, be it living or non-living,” says Eva Petrič, inviting the EGU2015 participants to stop by and immerse themselves in her work.