Come into My Niche: On Microbes and Intimacy
With Joana MacLean
Workshop, Reading Group
Sa., 20.9.2025
15:00–17:00
Pavilion (Semra Ertan Garden)
In English
Free entry
Registration via opencalls.discourse@hkw.de by 1 September

Part of the L is for the Way You Look at Me Reading Group
Departing from poet and writer Daisy Lafarge’s book Love Bug, (soil)microbiologist Joana MacLean explores the language of love and intimacy along with concepts of microbial interactions—states of constant entanglement, porosity, permeability, and yet sometimes insurmountable barriers.
In this session, MacLean unfolds the complexity of microbial strategies to shed light on a more expansive understanding of coexistence and bodily boundaries. Expect love-bombing fungi, ghosting bacteria, and plants in toxic relationships. The reading session blends the somatic, the textual, and the affective to explore humanity’s intimate connections with microbes and think about the messy web of life we are all woven into.