Building an Ecosystem

Oct 15

Jason Dy, SJ presents a study and a reflection into the harmony of the spiritual, the scientific, and the artistic.

Words Lea Mari Diño
October 15, 2024

The seed, so to speak, was a plant sprouting from a plastic bottle that Jesuit priest, contemporary artist, and independent curator Jason Dy, SJ chanced upon almost a decade ago in a carpentry shop near the Ateneo in Quezon City. This idea has now sprouted into thirteen terrariums which he presents in Care/Control (Towards a Sustainable Ecosystem).

In this exhibition, Dy invites us to a phytophenomenology; particularly, one that aims to capture and investigate the aliveness of plants in these terrariums: how these living matter perceive the prevailing atmosphere, and subsequently, how they are able to nurture and nourish themselves with respect to available space, temperature, light, and water. Laboratory-like, the glass vessels are specimens of the curious natural, physical processes of botany and hydrology, which include photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Accompanying these terrariums are brief but attentive documentations from Dy on the conditions of soil and condensation; and flora, protists, and fungi, even their scientific name and origins. The minute ecosystems are carefully described, whether flourishing and otherwise.

The LED neon signs are Dy’s long-standing contemplation on the ideas of the curatorial, which are also integral in the raising of these terrariums: care and control. These small ecosystems care for themselves. The vessel controls how much of the plants are allowed to grow. And in the larger scheme of things, care may be self-preservation manifest; control may arise from the intention to care. And so, we inquire: in Care/Control, is the slash a thicket separating these concepts? Or, could it be realized as a vine that binds them?

In these scaled down worlds inside bottles small enough to be held in our hands (to borrow from poet Edith Tiempo), Dy presents a study and a reflection into the harmony of the spiritual, the scientific, and the artistic. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are the main processes of the enclosed ecosystem for each terrarium.