Vitreous Body, whose title refers to the transparent, gelatinous substance that fills the eye and enables the perception of light, is a project that extends the photographic practice of Lara Tabet, a medical biologist and transdisciplinary artist.

Tracing a personal cartography of the waters she has crossed, Lara Tabet collects samples in and around the city of Marseille, France, to develop an experimental bacteriographic protocol

in which aquatic microorganisms interact with photosensitive surfaces such as gelatin layer of color film. Through corrosion and erosion, the forms that emerge do not depict a landscape; they make visible microbiological activity while bringing to light the environmental, and political toxicities that traverse these territories.

In Vitrous Body, these image-ecosystems are translated into contemporary stained glass. Stained glass becomes, a critical surface here, filtering and diffracting, not a sacred scene, but a layered network of circulations, contaminations and ecological interdependencies.

Presented at Paris Photo and on occasion of the Bicentennial of Photography, the project is expanded with a new body of “bioplastic” works, new experimental surfaces that further develop the reflection on the medium’s hybrid nature, reminding us that the image is inseparable from chemistry, alteration, and agency.