semelparous

Joey Holder Semelparous

13 Feb – 22 March 2020

Springhealth Leisure Center, 81 Belsize Park Gardens, London UK NW3 4NJ

Joey Holder presents Semelparous, a site-specific installation in the Pool and Spa of the now-closed Springhealth Leisure Center. Through decimated research of the European Eels complex migration, reproduction, and biological makeup, Holder examines the irreplicable forces of the natural world. 

'Semelparous’ characterizes a species that undertakes a single reproductive episode before death. A unique and generative strategy in which the organism inputs all available resources into maximizing reproduction at the expense of future life. Each autumn, European Eels leave their freshwater river homes and migrate more than 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, to the bottom of the Sargasso Sea, to breed for a single time. The eels' reproductive life has eluded scientists and philosophers for centuries, as humans have never witnessed nor recorded their spawning rituals. 

Semelparous revolves around Holder’s newest video work, situated within a complex physical structure, the eel is depicted as a mythological symbol, biological specimen, and it’s most controversial role: food. Unable to replicate the species enigmatic reproductive life in captivity, young European Eels have been extracted and illegally trafficked to farms throughout various regions of Eastern Asia. These practices have severely impacted the populations, and as of 2011, the European Eel has remained critically endangered.

Responding to the eels population crisis, spawning migration, and structural characteristics of the Springhealth pool, Semelparous is a monument to the European Eel. Sculptural elements are extended from the existing architecture as plants and organic materials spill out from the skylights overhead to the depths of the pool. Through its immersive nature and biological sources, Semelparous speculates on our inability to replicate the encoded phenomenon present within an organism’s biological makeup. 

Curated by Julia Greenway Semelparous is generously supported by Arts Council England and presented in partnership with Harlesden High Street. Further support provided by the Zabludowicz Collection and  the Exhibitions Hub at Goldsmiths College. The artist's work appears courtesy of Seventeen, London.

About Joey Holder

Working with scientific and technical experts Holder makes immersive, multimedia installations that explore the limits of the human and how we experience non-human, natural and technological forms. Mixing elements of biology, nanotechnology and natural history against computer programme interfaces, screensavers and measuring devices, she suggests the impermanence and interchangeability of these apparently contrasting and oppositional worlds: ‘everything is a mutant and a hybrid’. Connecting forms which have emerged through our human taste, culture and industrial processes she investigates complex systems that dissolve notions of the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’. GM products, virtual biology and aquatic creatures are incorporated into an extended web; challenging our perception of evolution, adaptation and change. 


Holder has exhibited widely throughout the UK and Internationally including Transmediale, Berlin (2017), Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2017), Venice Biennale, Italy (2015), Liverpool Biennale (2014), Design Museum, London (2013) and the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Massachusetts (2013). 


Holder’s 2018 project Adcredo was presented at QUAD, Derby, Bloc Projects, Sheffield and Matt's Gallery, London, the project investigated the construction of belief in online networks. Adcredo brought together Investigative Journalists to research and infiltrate online fraternities and Social Psychologists to understand the resulting collective behaviors as well as other artists, writers, and researchers. Holder received international press coverage and was featured in “Mythology and Machine Parenting” an interview by Alice Bucknell for Elephant (Issue 37, Dec 2018).