THEY ARE BEFORE AND AFTER

A site-specific water shrine, made with ceramic bowls, iron tripods, asphalt, sand, neon light and a watering system. A place where liquids slowly drip into reflecting pools depicting insects, amoeba, amphibians and micro-organisms, nestled beneath a green light ring that hovers like a halo.

The installation conjures a ritual space within Spazio Volta's former stone underground fountain, inviting the practice of presence. A conversation between elements, materials and mythologies that mirrors the rythm of the swamp itself: cyclical, dense, oracular.

In their work, Venus Jasper cultivates a practice rooted in the abundant depths of the swamp - a site of decay, rebirth, and erotic entanglement. Their work channels the slow, sensual logic of wetlands to envision post-capitalist futures grounded in ecosexuality, reclaiming the swamp not as a place of peril or abjection but as a slippery yet sacred terrain that rejects extraction and exploitation. Here, matter is animated, boundaries are porous, and the swamp is not a backdrop but a co-creator. A moist, breathing entity that dissolves separation and offers a messy, intimate path towards reworlding.
In this liminal ecosystem - neither fully mineral nor water - the artist evokes a metaphor for queer embodiment and ecological intimacy.
—  Text by Zoë De Luca Legge, curator of Pushing Up Daisies, Spazio Volta, Bergamo (IT).

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• _{They Are Before and After was also shown as part of the intallation Stinky Mirrors, during the Shaping Bonds program at IDFA | Het Documentaire Paviljoen, 2026. And was presented at the Elemental Narratives exhibition at International Drawing Center, Nijmegen.}