We are getting increasingly comfortable with the idea of having a community of bacteria living inside and on our bodies. Health experts have convinced us that we need to care for the “friendly” bacteria in our gut while the beauty industry sells probiotics-infused mists and potions that will maintain our skin “balanced”. But how do we feel about bacteria when they do not belong to our own microbiome? About the other microorganisms that are within and around us at all times? Other people’s bacteria, for example? Or the viruses, parasites and fungi that inhabit us?

In her new show at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, Anicka Yi subverts the white, hygienic and temperature-controlled space of the art gallery by filling it with bacteria, metabolic processes and works that ferment, foam, mould and perish. And if many of them smell, it’s not only because they are brimming with life but also because smell -a sense that art tends to overlook- makes us face our assumptions about gender, race and hygiene. That is what the artist calls the “biopolitics of the senses,” a process that highlights how our associations with smell -along with sight- breed prejudices and anxieties.