Since 2018, the Spanish architecture team elii [oficina de arquitectura] has collaborated with German artist Orkan Telhan to develop a series of "architectures for microorganisms." Each of these evaluates the spatial implications of approaching space from a microbial perspective.
"Salivations" consists of a series of structures made from chewing gum that spent time in the mouths of stray dogs who have faced complex political realities, such as the recent Turkish law that evicted them from the streets. The main idea is to explore the intertwined microbial histories of displacement and belonging.
Saliva, carrying traces of past microorganisms, travels from species to species, from food to food, crossing geographies and reflecting histories of displacement, migration, and eviction. "Salivations" explores the traces of the many places we have been, the ghosts of our ancestors, and the climates we have endured.
"Salivations" by elii + Orkan Telhan. Photograph by Allegra Martin.
Project description by elii + Orkan Telhan
We, the microorganisms traveling in the mouths of humans and their canine companions, carry stories older than our hosts themselves. Our journeys, traced through saliva, span continents and generations…
Saliva is among our oldest meeting places—a site of exchange, a fluidic architecture where we all blur into each other. At a given time, there are typically twenty billion bacteria in my dog’s mouth. They are from me, my lover, your neighborhood, Milan, and countless other beings who we have crossed paths with.
Some of us are stories of displacement. We come from diverse places, ecologies, climates and dwell into new relationships, new homes. Our recent dogs carry traces of microorganisms from our past dogs. As we travel in the mouths of our fellow companions, they also carry us along with traces of dust, food, and distant geographies, as we pass on from species to species.
"Salivations" explores our intertwined microbial histories of displacement and belonging through the interspecies landscape of saliva. The installation consists of a series of structures made of chewing gum who spent time in the mouths of Çaça, Bailey, Kahve, and Gatsby. Our companions are immigrants, adoptions, strays who have seen the complex political realities, from Turkey's recent law that stripped stray dogs of their streets, thrusting them into uncertain futures, to the United States, where debates on breeding, shelters, and belonging shape new stories of kinship, responsibility, and care.
Through DNA sequencing, we investigated which microorganisms humans and their dogs share. We felt encouraged to see the traces of the numerous places we have been, the ghosts of our beloved ones we carried forward, the climates endured, all do exist in saliva, we call home.
