In the studio, I think about how to group this series of small works. Arranging and rearranging, until maybe, I am satisfied.
Eventually I pull out all (all!) of my under the microscope studies from the last year and recall a conversation with Tapoka.
Me: I can’t call a whipworm a microbe, can I?
Tapoka: I think it is a microorganism as it is small but it has many cells. I believe microbes are usually single celled like a bacteria would be.
According to my handy-dandy Medical Meanings, second edition glossary:
Micro– is a combining form, usually used as a prefix, that is a near borrowing of the Greek mikros, “small, petty, trivial”.
And…
Microbe– is a concoction of micro- + the Greek bios, “life”, proposed in the late 19th century to designate any minute, living organism; useful as a generic term for the gamut from viruses to protozoa.
Based on everything I’ve learned and considering the last year we’ve had, I have no appreciation for the meaning of mikros including words like petty or trivial.
I tack all my work up. It appears I have a concoction of small life on the studio wall.
I know human body as ecosystem with diverse population living within. Some of those organisms cooperate, others (most?) compete with each other and with host. Microbes manipulate. Survival…
#cooperation #competition #life #NothingInStasis
FYI: UPPERCASE (50th edition) published a few of my pathogens. Magazine out in July!
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Monica Aissa Martinez 