‘Rituals with Microbial Ancestors’ is a performance that stems from the alchemy created during fermentation processes. Insinuating a possible future in which different worlds create a universe that is both terrestrial and aquatic, human and bacterial, the performance poetically explores the close and fascinating relationship between humans and bacteria. Anne Marie Maes invites us to consider what the future of coexistence might look like in a world where our ecological consciousness is constantly evolving and speculative time fluctuates through a network. Do we reject or embrace these tiny organisms as they weave a membrane of space-time around our bodies? Can we become entwined in an erotic embrace with these slimy substances? Can our collaboration with these bacterial organisms lead to a sustainable future that draws us into its fertile depths?
Surrounded by the elements of her installation ‘Microbial Ancestor’, Maes invites us to step into a world where the boundary between humans and microorganisms blurs. The scoby mother is moist and slimy, with a sour smell of living matter. Every death is a birth and every end is a beginning. Transmutation. Bacterial time, human time, fermenting time. Collaborations fuel transformations. Music for bacteria is polyphonic and interweaves on different levels.

©photos Luc Steels