"Microchimerism" 2018
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Alicia Frankovich
Born 1980, Tauranga, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Victoria. Pronouns: she/her.
"Microchimerism" 2018
gold and pink adhesive vinyl
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, purchased 2019.
Microchimerism visualises the presence of DNA from others within our own bodies, suggesting that we are composite beings, made of multitudes. The phenomenon is most associated with pregnancy due to the reciprocal cellular exchange between mother and child—which can be retained for decades—as well as blood transfusions.
Alicia Frankovich draws on microscopic imaging techniques derived from a blood test to produce a constellation of gold and pink characters graphically representing the female karyotype. It is the artist’s own, and its form reveals the number and appearance of chromosomes in the nucleus of a cell, with gold being the artist’s and pink being others’.
In Microchimerism, Frankovich challenges definitions of the self-contained biological individual, dispelling the Western mythology that humans are singular, autonomous organisms. By displaying her own karyotype in a collective portrait of self and others, Frankovich reveals the cellular entanglements between beings in a time when the binaries around gender and sexuality are becoming increasingly blurred.