Nothing Is Destroyed: Esvin Alarcón Lam

by Mia Butter // Feb. 4, 2025

This article is part of our feature topic Cycles.

“All things are alter’d, nothing is destroyed,” writes John Dryden, translating Odin’s ‘Metamorphosis.’ Or M. NourbeSe Philip, who borrows this epigraph from Odin in her book ‘​​She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks’ from 1988. Born that same year is the artist Esvin Alarcón Lam, who has Philip’s book laid out on a pedestal in his show ‘The Practical Guide to Gardening’ at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Tackling themes of identity, queerness and colonialism, the Guatemalan-Chinese artist references literature and history to contextualize his exploration of bamboo–an ongoing investigation of its materiality and symbolism.

Esvin Alarcón Lam: ‘untitled,’ 2025, installation view // Courtesy of Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Walking up the stairs and into the showroom at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, I wonder where to begin. Alarcón Lam works across various media, from performance to painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and more. This exhibition is no exception. A quick scan around the four corners of the room, and you will see micrographs of bamboo, actual bamboo, plastic bamboo and drawings of bamboo, and then suddenly, photos of a human scalp scabbed and punctured. Alarcón Lam’s photos of his hair transplant jut out from the rest of the works, with hair follicles crusted over in blood and impossible to ignore. A metaphor begins to emerge, and the invisible pins and strings begin to form an evidence board across the space. Transplantation here takes place on both the site of his body and on land, both aching, both transformed.

Esvin Alarcón Lam: ‘untitled,’ 2025, installation view // Courtesy of Künstlerhaus Bethanien

The research aesthetic that Alarcón Lam adopts is further pushed by one work in particular, a three-part charcoal drawing of a cross section of the human scalp. What emerges from the follicle is not hair, but rather a shoot of bamboo, as if native to the environment it finds itself in. Anatomically correct to a degree, the drawing includes an important part of a real human hair follicle–the dermal papilla. Situated at the base of the hair follicle, the dermal papilla contains the cells playing a central role in hair growth and the hair’s life cycle. Here, the growth of the human hair, once transplanted into the artist’s scalp, and the bamboo, transplanted from Asian soil into South American soil, share a cycle. As markers of identity, both grown and lost rapidly: the trauma and history that these two materials store within them is practically displayed, and yet tenderly analyzed by Alarcón Lam.

Another drawing: two ski poles, one on three sheets of white paper, the other on three sheets of black paper, hung side by side as an inverse to one another. Slightly curved with the distinct lines of bamboo nodes, the work touches on another segment of colonial history involving the plant. American botanist Floyd McClure introduced bamboo from China to the South American continent, with various intentions, some militarily inclined. During the Second World War, bamboo ski poles like those drawn by Alarcón Lam were used by Colorado rangers to traverse the mountainous region. The forced transplantation of bamboo for the purpose of serving those dominating the landscape is spelled out to the viewer, highlighting the connection of botany to colonization in this context.

Esvin Alarcón Lam: ‘untitled,’ 2025, installation view // Courtesy of Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Another depiction of bamboo, this time in the form of a micrograph, hangs as a green-tinged aluminum dibond print on a white wall. A longitudinal cross-section, with rectangular plant cells in rows reminiscent of Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss,’ is one of the more matter-of-fact works on show in ‘The Practical Guide to Gardening.’ Again, the sensation of fluttering through the artist’s personal research returns, and the invisible strings connecting the photographs to the bamboo hair follicle stretch here too. I turn around, and gaze up at a work I hadn’t properly noticed before. A small, synthetically green bundle of plastic bamboo hangs from the ceiling like a sprig of mistletoe. Perhaps still the most playful work in the exhibition, I can’t help but think about mistletoe’s parasitic nature, stunting the growth of its host. Am I reading into this too much, or am I being invited to do so? Produced to imitate, the plastic bamboo serves as an eerily accurate depiction of what real bamboo does. It persists. While the actual plant experiences a cycle of growing and being hewed, its plastic twin continues unchanged, almost in resistance to the process of pain and renewal.

It feels refreshing to enter an exhibition that elicits this type of consideration. Deep-diving into his work is the only option. In a show where the curation is simple, verging on bare, it still feels like an effective approach to showing this body of work. The intention, I gather, is to promote an understanding of identity, whether through one’s body or culture, as inextricable from change. The chosen works portray the exploration Alarcón Lam continues to undergo, in a way that doesn’t feel like indoctrination, but rather a guide, as the title suggests. This approach is refreshing, and the vulnerability required to do so feels like it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Esvin Alarcón Lam: ‘untitled,’ 2025, installation view // Courtesy of Künstlerhaus Bethanien

With each news cycle more dire than the previous one and with anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise, leaving Künstlerhaus Bethanien on the note of M. NourbeSe Philip’s poetry feels appropriate, if not soothing. Lying open on a spotlit pedestal, page 70 of the book tells of grief and anticipation. I recognize the title of the show on the page in front of me, above it, the words: “When transplanting, you may notice a gently ripping sound as the roots are torn away from the soil. This is to be expected: for the plant, transplanting is always a painful process.” While painful, it also signals the urgent potential for regrowth.

Artist Info

esvinalarconlam.com

Exhibition Info

Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Esvin Alarcón Lam: ‘The Practical Guide to Gardening’
Exhibition: Jan. 24-Feb. 16, 2025
bethanien.de
Kottbusser Str. 10/d, 10999 Berlin, click here for map

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