MOTHERCRAFT: Microchimeric Bodies

Microchimeric Bodies is a group exhibition curated by Olivia Guterson and Amy Feigley-Lee, grounded in the scientific and biological phenomenon of microchimeris, the presence of cells from another individual within one’s body. These imperceptible cells unsettle the boundaries between self and other, with the most common natural occurrence taking place during pregnancy.

Never fixed but always in process, the artist caregivers featured in this exhibition practice through an ongoing circulation of call and response. Their works emerge in the margins of making: in moments found, borrowed, or reclaimed amidst the rhythms and responsibilities of caregiving. Created within the interstices of daily life, these works are shaped by proximity, not only to one another, but also to the children, families, and communities that surround them. Through this shared condition, the works absorb, reflect, and transform as they encounter new gestures, materials, and ideas.

Microchimeric Bodies foregrounds moments of passage; thresholds where meaning shifts, boundaries blur, and new forms of relation come into being. This exhibition invites all who enter to consider how we are constituted through others, how traces of connection persist within us, and how meaning emerges not from singular authorship, but from the shared, transformative processes we inhabit.

UN SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

We use Detroit's UNESCO City of Design designation as a call to action for Detroiters to embrace the Sustainable Development Goals in their own communities, contributing to the active effort of solving global interconnected issues.