In her studio-lab, Maria Chekhanovich Nerssesian (Miri Chek) concocts organic, biodegradable, and edible sculptures. She mixes glycerin, water, and powders made from plants, algae, and food residue to create a non-petrochemical plastic that she can infinitely mould, melt, and reshape. In her early experiments with bioplastics, she gave form to the holes and cracks that thawing creates in pavement by filling such \u201cnegative spaces\u201d of the urban landscape with this flexible material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miri Chek finds resonance between plasticity and her fluid origins. Of Armenian and Russian descent and raised in Jerusalem before immigrating to Tiohti\u00e1:ke\/Mooniyang\/Montr\u00e9al, she feeds her practice with the histories that have shaped her. The installation Bouche de miel<\/em> (2022) stages a common Soviet kitchen with a few scattered objects reproduced in gelatin: a patched-up rug symbolizing the reunion of two sisters separated by the Armenian genocide, and a Stalinist cookbook giving the illusion of abundance in a period of famine. Their strange materiality refers to the malleability of both her identity and the stories that suffuse it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her exploration of the narrative potential of plastic, Miri Chek has collaborated with filmmaker \u00c9dith Jorisch to create a meditative virtual environment. Plastisapiens<\/em> (2021) imagines a kinship between organic and plastic materials, a world with porous borders in which various organisms melt into each other. As they virtually inhabit a hybrid body with tentacular arms, participants dive into this coevolutionary universe, which presents plasticity as a capacity for adaptation and empathy. In addition to the virtual experience, a multisensory installation envelops visitors in bioplastic and textile hangings, inviting them to become one with the plastic by ingesting fragments of the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By building connections among material, memory, and virtuality, Miri Chek envisions plasticity as a material quality and a state of mind. Her approach suggests that the transformations we undergo when in contact with this material inspire a suppler consciousness and open our senses to a greater compassion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based in the Eastern Townships, No\u00e9mie Fortin is an independent curator, writer, and cultural worker sensitive to forms and practices rooted in ecofeminist thought. Her research focuses on ecological art that goes outside institutions in order to encounter territories and communities, particularly in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\n