The exhibition Nets of Hyphae at Kunsthal Aarhus is Diana Policarpo’s first solo exhibition at a Danish art institution. The young Portuguese visual artist and composer was born in 1986 and in recent years she has made a name for herself in exhibition venues around the world.

The title of the exhibition, Nets of Hyphae, refers to the thin, underground tissues that allow mushrooms to grow, and which connect them as part of a larger network. Based on the artist’s interest in botanical knowledge and its relation to the human body, the exhibition presents six artworks in different media – sound, video, digital animation, and textiles – that explore issues including women’s sexual health, the right to self-determination in healthcare, the suppression of ancestral knowledge, and health justice.

The six artworks that are all created in 2020 are:

• The sound installation Drift - which flows like a cohesive force through the exhibition.
• The Oracle - showing a historical chronicle of the ergot plant from Greek mythology to the Middle Ages.
• Infected Ear - a two-channel digital animation based on the life cycle of the ergot plant.
• Bodies we Care for I - X - a series of enlarged drawings on fabric.
• Cyanovan (Protocol) - a video piece addressing themes of gender and technology presented on a screen suspended from the ceiling.
• Bosch's Garden - a three-channel digital animation based on Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's (c. 1450-1516) triptych of St Anthony's Temptation (c. 1501).

Diana Policarpo (b. 1986, Portugal) is a visual artist and composer who, through visual and musical media including drawing, video, sculpture, text, performance, and multi-channel sound installation investigates gender politics, economic structures, health, and interspecies relations. Her speculative, transdisciplinary research has resulted in the creation of performances and installations which examine experiences of vulnerability and empowerment which emerge when one exposes oneself to the capitalist world.

Her work has been exhibited worldwide, and has included solo presentation at Kunsthal Aarhus (Nets of Hyphae, 2023); Helsinki Biennial (Ciguatera, 2023); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (Liquid Transfers, 2022); RADIUS, Delft (Nets of Hyphae, 2022); CRAC Occitanie, Sète (Les fillets d’hyphes, 2022); Ocean Space, Venice (Ciguatera, 2022); Kunsthall Trondheim (Nets of Hyphae, 2021); Galeria Municipal do Porto (Nets of Hyphae, 2021); MAAT, Lisbon (Um oasis ao entardecer, 2020); CAV, Coimbra (Solar Watch, 2020); Nottingham Contemporary (Death Grip, 2020); GNRation, Braga (Total Eclipse, 2020); Kunsthall Oslo (Water from the Waist Down, 2020); Galeria Lehmann + Silva, Porto (Overlay, 2020); Kunstverein Leipzig (Dissonant Counterpoint, 2017); Galeria Francisco Fino, Lisbon (Dissonant Counterpoint, 2018); Kunsthall Baden-Baden (Beating Back Darkness, 2014); Whitechapel Gallery (Performance as Publishing, 2019) and Xero, Kline & Coma, London (Visions of Excess, 2015). Policarpo has won several awards - Prémio Novos Artistas Fundação EDP (2019) and illy Present Future Prize (2021).

Exhibition manager: Seolhui Lee, Kunsthal Aarhus.

Curators: Seolhui Lee & Diana Baldon.

The exhibition is generously supported by:
Danish Arts Foundation
Aarhus Municipality
Det Obelske Familiefond
Beckett-Fonden
Augustinusfonden
Knud Højgaard Fond
Hoffmann og Husmans Fond
The Portuguese Embassy