Hlymia (2024) juxtaposes bodily and scientific matter: my own hair, which I shaved to get closer to the psoriatic patches on my scalp; a scientific diagram showing the analysis of my lymphocytes; metal pins marking the T-cell population linked to the condition; and three glass sculptures nesting on my hair and evoking possible cell incubators.

Psoriasis affects everyday life in at times unpredictable manners. One has to get used to ‘flares’ and ‘blooming’ – such naming of it helped me come to terms to the itchy flaking of the skin and the feeling as if my body was revolting against itself. Warm baths help sooth the skin and thus become a ritual of care. Interestingly though, only my scalp is affected, meaning that the flares mostly go unnoticed by other people. Science has explained how autoimmune response works at a cellular and molecular level, yet the “why” remains unresolved.

During a residency at the Experimental Immunology department, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, I worked with immunologists to study the behaviour of my lymphocytes responsible for psoriasis. The process involved taking my blood and isolating lymphocytes for subsequent high-dimensional flow cytometry, a technique that allows precise marking of cells according to desired parameters. In this way, we could identify a specific population of lymphocytes that was reactive towards skin cells.

Hlymia belongs to my current artwork series investigating death as an ecology and focuses on the intertwining of death and life in living body. The immune system is often seen as the prime gate keeper for “the Self”. Philosophically, autoimmune diseases challenge the idea of the Self as an entity enclosed by the immune system. Rather, the immune system may be thought of as a complex, leaky ecology.

The diptych plays with materiality, sensoriality and different kinds of knowledge. Skin, metal pins, hair, soft textures and piercing spikes, unruliness and high-dimensional precision evoke enigmatic molecular behaviour and the feeling of unrest linked to the condition.

The exhibit can be completed with photographs from a performance for camera during my last bath with long hair.