The Proliferation of the Trace is a living work composed of a grid of hermetically sealed glass test tubes, each containing agar-agar inoculated with microorganisms. As the fungi develop, they generate an organic image in constant transformation, revealing autonomous ecosystems in interaction and expansion. The piece evolves throughout the exhibition period, inviting reflection on life cycles, matter as an active agent, the aesthetics produced by biological processes, and the ways in which these forms of life contribute to rethinking the relationship between human beings and their environment. Situated at the intersection of art and science, the installation questions the limits of authorship, permanence, and the image as a controlled outcome.
Paula García Nieto (Paula Ciani) is a bioartist, holding a degree in Fine Arts and currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Arts at the University of Murcia. She has undertaken research residencies at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto (Portugal) and at Denison University, Ohio (USA), where she further developed her practice in bioart. Her work unfolds at the intersection of art and science, using living microorganisms as artistic material. Her pieces are conceived as autonomous ecosystems in constant transformation, where bacteria and fungi act as co-authors, blurring the boundaries between the human and the non-human, the material and the symbiotic. Each work is born, mutates, and disappears, rendering the invisible visible and proposing an aesthetic grounded in biological cooperation and organic temporality. Paula conceives art as a space of encounter between disciplines, where living processes challenge the notion of authorship and open up alternative modes of existence within the creative process. She has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions and has received awards and distinctions that attest to her experimental and ecological approach to the visual arts.