the witch in the lab coat
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HOMUNCULARIUMS
2024
The Homunculariums are two interconnected ritual performance works that draw on the historical figure of the homunculus—an artificially generated, miniature humanoid, associated with early alchemical and proto-biotechnological experimentation. Homuncularium Basiliscus and the Mooncalf Homuncularium examine the enduring desire to fabricate life in controlled conditions. Rather than attempting to replicate this figure directly, the work approaches the homunculus as a conceptual device through which to consider containment, cultivation, and the controls under which life is imagined to emerge. The Homunculariums reframe the homunculus as a distributed condition, an ongoing negotiation between containment and emergence. The enclosed vessel becomes both laboratory and stage, where the boundaries between life and non-life, intention and accident remain unresolved.
HOMUNCULARIUM BASILISCUS
Homuncularium Basiliscus is the first work in the Homunculariums series, initially activated at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, UK. The project takes the form of a ritual activation and short film documenting the im-plant-ation of queer reproductive body fluids donated by four anonymous participants. The procedure draws on a hybridised protocol merging the writings of Paracelsus with esoteric texts from the Museum’s Richel Collection. This techno-alchemical experiment invokes the speculative creation of a basilisk–human hybrid, utilizing fluids that resist reproductive normativity. The activation was performed under the lunar eclipse of March 2024 and remained installed in situ until December 31, 2024, as part of Arcanum Sanguinis: Occult Blood, a year-long curated exhibition by the artist.
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MOONCALF HOMUNCULARIUM
Mooncalf Homuncularium is an activated in situ textile sculpture and ritual performance that engages the speculative creation of an alchemical in vitro body once termed a “homunculus.” Red string, evoking both umbilical cord and binding thread, is wound around an incubation structure into which bodily fluids are combined, staging a collective act of entanglement, possible generation, and biopolitical uncertainty. Drawing on the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread, the work frames the act of winding as a process of navigation—an attempt to move through and unravel the ethical labyrinths surrounding reproduction, authorship, and the construction of life.