Photosynthetic You is a workshop and a participatory action that carries on the idea of human photosynthesis that Vanessa V started to explore in 2020 (S+T+Arts Prize For Social Good winner 2021) with the installation Photosynthetic Me.
It investigates fundamental ethical and political questions related to the renewed debate on genetics reaching as far as the hypothesis of being able to exchange our human genes with those of other species (plants) using innovative systems such as CRISPR/Cas. What if we can all decide, paradoxically and in an extreme, mass democratic act, to become thin and motionless like leaves, energetically self-sufficient like plants, feeding only on light and solar power? How can we imagine a world in which we all are hybridized with plants?
In the workshop, participants are invited to undertake a training and learning trail guided by plants and mediated by technologies.
The idea behind this path is that humans must be domesticated and colonized by plants in order to activate an evolutionary path that will mutate people into photosynthetic and plant-like hybrid organisms, self-sufficient for food and energy requirements.

The workshop was presented for the first time as part of the “What is life?” program curated by Prof. Pier Luigi Capucci at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino.
In September 2022 it was presented at Ars Electronica.

If you are interested to know more about the narrative behind the two projects that Vanessa V created around the idea of Human Photosynthesis (Photosynthetic Me and Photosynthetic You), here you can find a long article in the Academic Journal Surprize n°4 by Noema Media and Publishing (curated by Pier Luigi Capucci) noema.media What is life 2022.pdf (pp. 43-48 ITA+ENG)