Ivana Adaime Makac.Tight Bonds: WIZARD LAB

 

WIZARD LAB is delighted to present Tight Bonds, Ivana Adaime Makac‘s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

 

The central body of work in this exhibition focuses on Adaime Makac’s ongoing project Gourdes sous contraintes (Gourds under Constraints), which explores the complex and often ambivalent relationships humans maintain with domesticated non-human life forms, emphasizing their capacity for adaptation. Drawing inspiration from non-Western artisanal traditions, the project employs techniques that involve shaping gourds or calabashes by applying constraints during their growth, guiding them to develop into altered, constrained forms.

 

The artist explains: “By cultivating different varieties of gourds (lagenaria siceraria), I observe the different behaviours that these fruits experience in response to the constraints imposed (ropes, various debris from protective packaging, waste from everyday objects). Some varieties will push back, or even tear the constraints by their growth force, while other varieties will adapt to the constraint and ‘self-sculpt’ through it”.

 

The title refers to the relationship between the gourds and the elements that have constrained—or not—their growth. It also points to the “tight bonds” connecting several of the artist’s projects, which are linked through the re-use or recycling of elements at both material and symbolic levels. Tight Bonds further suggests the complex, often mutual, relationships of domestication between humans and other living beings, as well as the intertwined connections with the vegetal and animal realms. Finally, the title acknowledges the dialogues that Adaime Makac establishes with other artists, particularly, in some aspects of this show, with Marianne Berenhaut’s Poupées Poubelles series.

 

Developing between late March (the sowing period) and autumn’s end (the harvest period), Gourdes sous contraintes is a sculptural project that integrates gestures of gardening and organic farming, engaging with the presence of other non-human beings—such as slugs— often considered “harmful.” As the gourds or calabashes dry and harden over the winter, they become autonomous sculptures or elements within larger installations, as presented at WIZARD LAB.

 

For this exhibition, Adaime Makac has conceived the gallery as a single, cohesive installation in which gourd sculptures and bronze casts of calabashes intermingle with recurring and newly developed elements of the artist’s practice.

 

Initiated in 2020, this long-term project has been developed as part of a residency in the garden of the Clinamen association at Georges Valbon Park (La Courneuve).