The Sympathizer, 2025

Ballostar Mobile
Talgut-Zentrum 5,
3063 Ittigen
Bern, Switzerland

Ballostar Mobile is pleased to present The Sympathizer, an exhibition by artist Arden Surdam. The show's title points to both the scientific process of material synthesis and the more nebulous question of how environmental systems engage in acts of mutual sympathy.

Continuing Surdam’s interrogation of photography, this new body of work is concerned with glaciers and their microscopic inhabitants. At the center of the exhibition lies The Sympathizer, a bacteria named Pseudomonas Fragi discovered by Dr. Martina Gonzalez Mateu at EPFL’s Alpine and Polar Environmental Research Centre (ALPOLE).

After collecting glacial runoff samples from the river Drance de Ferret, Dr. Mateu noticed that at least a third of the 200 bacterial isolates demonstrated iridescence. She notes, “We really haven’t seen this phenomenon in nature and cannot say that it is related to any particular activity or adaptation. The iridescence, so far, is seen only in isolates growing in our lab conditions.” This biological phenomena therefore remains unanswered, however Surdam’s work hints that this property functions as an index of its presence.

Iridescence occurs when light waves interact with microstructures causing interference. The shifting colors of The Sympathizer act as a visual imprint,operating as both a trace and an interface between the organism and its environment. They reveal not just the bacteria’s activity but also its perpetual adaptation to extreme conditions i.e. freezing temperatures. In this way, Surdam speculates that the iridescence serves as a marker of environmental accommodation and a material trace of the bacterial network’s cooperation.

Dividing The Sympathizer from the rest of the exhibition are two geotextile curtains, one new and the other used. Generously donated by Naue GmbH and Dr. Daniel Farinotti from ETH, the curtains are made from Secutex® Green 40G1 GRK 3, a biodegradable, nonwoven material. Designed to stabilize glacial terrain, the fabric underscores the precariousness of melting glaciers and the ways in which humans attempt to slow their retreat. Composed of renewable fibers, the material degrades over time with the glacier’s transformations inscribed into the geotextiles. The form of the glacier is not merely reflected but actively inscribed into the material itself, as both the glacier and the geotextile continually adapt to one another, creating an ongoing, reciprocal exchange.

The show also features a series of photographs and two sculptures including a partially melting Mid-Century Modern teardrop chandelier. With these artworks, the artist suggests that the indexical relationship central to photo theory might be reconceived as a form of material sympathy. As the materials recognize and respond to one another, they generate a third state—a hybrid avatar that exists not as mere convergence but as ongoing negotiation. Matter and environment deform each other into something new, contingent, and fugitive.

The exhibition would not have been possible without the generous financial contributions from Stadt Bern, Canton Bern, and Stiftung Bilas. Special thanks to Dr. Martina Gonzalez Mateu, Dr. Florian Baier, Dr. Daniel Farinotti, Dr. Birgit Sattler, Dr. Helge Hoyme and Naue GmbH, and to Dr. Tom Battin who sparked this rabbit hole.