We discuss human surface, its significance and its potential, seen as a site of contestation between mythology, biology and technology. Loan Favan’s artistic practice oscillates within this triangle. She looks at body modifications and scarification rituals within a range of cultures in Oceania, including Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and her native New Caledonia. Constantly connecting mythology to contemporary society, she looks ahead into deep future, speculating on how the rituals and rites of passage could transform future humans with the help of biological and technological modifications. Her work creates a vast world of multi-species symbiosis, where human surface morphs to accommodate new features necessary to survive and to thrive in the future. We examine possible connections between her work and the historic pieces in the Wereldmuseum’s collection.

Contributors:
Loan Favan, Wonu Veys

With this issue, Current Obsession introduces an experimental publishing model, with the magazine being released chapter by chapter throughout the year, instead of all at once. Each chapter comes a result of an in-real-life activation, in the case of this issue – an evening of performances and conversations, a workshop, a studio visits and panel discussion, and a museum archive visit. The final content is, therefore, not defined in advanced, but rather, created together with our public. We set out with a premise, an idea, and we ask others to join us in conversation, shaping the outcome together.