From one life into another: Affective thresholds and astonishing matters
Ana María Devis

In this newly conceived project, the familiar contours of domestic space are dramatically transformed. As human activity fades, home interiors awaken, shifting from passive containers to vibrant sites of biological and emotional transformation, of affective thresholds and astonishing matters. Water becomes the central force, not just a liquid but a living conduit that sparks fermentation, microbial colonization, and metabolic change. Fungi, yeasts, and bacteria infiltrate fabrics, furniture, and surfaces, orchestrating their own mysterious reorganizations beyond human intention. These subtle invasions unveil the hidden energies pulsing through the life cycle, thriving most when human dominance gives way.

Strikingly, the visual and material traces left by these microbial and fungal occupations mirror vast natural territories: the tangled networks of forest roots, the layered richness of wetland soils, the hushed architectures of symbiotic communities. Beds, walls, and floors become canvases where fabrics burst with rhizomatic growth and textured blooms, quietly rewriting the domestic landscape with resilient patterns of non-human life. In an uncanny inversion of scale, Devis recreates a unique, immersive environmental installation, punctuated by distinct moments.

As always in her artistic research, Ana María Devis thrives on collapsing boundaries, destabilizing the micro and macro, the inner and outer, the bodily and the environmental into a single, fluid continuum. Her process moves from the intimate and its fleeting traces to the expansive ecologies that connect all life, weaving dialogues with natural elements that unify her intermedia practice. Through drawing, installation, video, sculpture, and photography, Devis embodies symbiotic exchanges that blur the lines between organic and inorganic, always emphasizing their deep interdependence.

From One Life into Another emerges as an environmental microbiotic landscape that beckons viewers to step into a space reshaped by non-human forces, to question the limits of domesticity, and to witness the subtle yet profound transformations that unfold when life is allowed to chart its own metabolic path, and ultimately to recognize that the threshold between one form of life and another is never a barrier, but a site of astonishing, continuous becoming.

Curated by: Eugenio Viola: Born in Naples, Italy, he is a curator, art critic, and holds a PhD in Archaeological and Art-Historical Research Methods and Methodologies from the University of Salerno. He served as General Curator at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea DonnaRegina – MADRE – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea DonnaRegina from 2009 to 2016, where he was responsible for research related to the museum’s collection and co-curated the first large-scale exhibitions in Italy of artists such as Boris Mikhailov, Francis Alÿs, and Daniel Buren, among others. From 2017 to 2019, he was Chief Curator of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). He served as Artistic Director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO) until 2026.