Maria Maneos
Under the Microscope, 2024Mixed Media
7 x 3 x3 feet
Under the Microscope is an immersive 7 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft installation composed of over 3,500 glass microscope slides containing the artist's own written stories, lived experiences, and supporting academic research. The work is rooted in years of personal diaries documenting the experience of loving and witnessing someone navigate addiction, mental health challenges, and the weight of societal stigma, alongside research drawn from public and government sources. The structure resembles both a scientific specimen and a confessional booth—fragile architecture of memory that viewers are invited to look into and through. Scrutiny is transformed into empathy as each illuminated slide holds a human fragment once silenced, now made visible through magnification. As viewers encounter the work, their own reflections merge with the images, implicating them in the act of witnessing. Under the Microscope bridges art, science, and psychology, transforming pain into transparency and spectacle into intimacy.
