The Hugo Boss Prize 2016: Anicka Yi, Life Is Cheap

Awarded the Hugo Boss Prize, the artist is presenting her installations about human psychology and the workings of society.
For this exhibition Yi worked with a team of molecular biologists and forensic chemists to create an installation in which natural and technological forces appear as surging, unruly forms that are nonetheless clinically contained.
This aroma, titled “Immigrant Caucus”, combines chemical compounds derived from Asian American women and carpenter ants. Yi posits the scent as a drug that manipulates perception, offering humans the potential to experience the installation with a new, hybridized perspective.