Christy Rupp: Swimming in the Gene Pool

Imagine a world where you trip over E. Coli, stare into the eyes of giant insects, and come face to face with the pesticides that cling to your food. You have now entered the world of Christy Rupp. Since the 1970s, this prolific artist has been creating sculpture that makes invisible hazards, like pollution and the results of genetic engineering, visible. Swimming in the Gene Pool-the inaugural exhibition of Kidspace at MASS MoCA-included Rupp's sculptures of water creatures, viruses, bacteria, and her newest work, genetically engineered insects and "labels" for genetically altered food. With this sculpture, Rupp makes a powerful case that in the world around us things are not always what they seem.

Eleven of Rupp's sculptures included in the Kidspace exhibit, depict what she calls genetically engineered insects-fantastic creatures that focus our attention on the unseen and potentially dangerous consequences of genetic engineering. Take a look at "Switched," a bug fashioned of welded steel and delicate, earth-colored papers. The insect's "parts" are in place, but Rupp has made an incongruous addition: in its thorax, between the head and abdomen, Rupp has inserted a light switch. This part insect/part machine is a three-dimensional metaphor for the process by which resistance in crops such as corn, potatoes, and soybeans "can be switched on with [the] application of different chemical sprays." As crops are "turned on," weeds and other natural pests are stamped out, but, as Rupp shows us, this seemingly advanced procedure may have unseen side effects. With the flip of a switch, man may have the power to alter an entire species. Rupp leaves it for us to decide whether this species will be illuminated or eliminated once the switch has been flipped.

Also swimming in the Kidspace pool during the exhibition were water creatures-sculptures of fish, turtles, and horseshoe crabs. In Red Tide, two sea turtles were stuffed with red Tide bottles and fought to survive the pollution they embody. In Fish and H2O Molecule, a school of brook trout swam around a giant molecule-2 parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Here Rupp enlarged the microscopic to the point where it loomed over the fish that depend on it, which led us to wonder just was how safe this water. These sculptures make tangible the often unseen threats posed to marine life, reminding us once again that what we can't see may cause the most harm to living creatures.