Artist Mire Lee incorporated her and her mother's blood into a glass sperm cell: ‘It looks like it’s swimming somewhere’

Artist Mire Lee has transformed the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam into a visceral exhibition titled Vomit My Blessing, where her large-scale, kinetic installations evoke human organs and biological processes. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a seven-meter-long, modified concrete mixer housed in the Mariakapel, which resembles an animal carcass moving within a pool of tinted liquid. Lee utilizes industrial materials like motors and hoses to explore themes of digestion and consumption, viewing the historic church as a giant, living organism that absorbs and transforms its contents.

Deeply personal elements are also woven into the exhibition, notably in an object titled Untitled (Mommy). Housed in a small, glass seed-shaped vessel, this piece contains a mixture of the artist’s own blood and that of her mother, Joungsun Lee, who traveled from Seoul for the exhibition. The work serves as a vulnerable meditation on the bond between mother and daughter, literally preserving their physical connection within the architectural space.