Bianca Hlywa's Living Yeast Sculpture 'Mute Track' Rotates at London's St. Chads Gallery

Bianca Hlywa's installation 'Mute Track' features a 110kg sheet of fermented yeast culture suspended from scaffolding at St. Chads in London. The artist fermented the culture for five months in her studio, then two more months in the gallery space. Each evening, Hlywa lowers the sheet into a chemical bath in the corner; each morning, she hoists it back up. A motor rotates the sculpture on a six-minute loop, creating patterned drips on the floor. The work emits a strong acidic odor that permeates clothing. St. Chads occupies two units of a former ear, nose, and throat hospital storage unit near King's Cross. The exhibition runs through 21 April 2025. This installation joins other recent works exploring grotesque materiality, including Mire Lee's 'Open Wound' at Tate Modern and Dan Lie's 'The Reek' at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. The sculpture's muteness is broken only by mechanical whirring and the sound of liquid brushing the floor. Hlywa assumes dual roles as creator and tormentor of the living artwork. The piece challenges tendencies toward sanitization in contemporary art.