Folio is a section bridging the printed page with unexpected media, hosted by a different artist or curator each issue. In this issue, St. Petersburg-based microbiologist Olga Pinegina collects different strains of recent work.
In petri concinnitas res crescunt
by Olga Pinegina
Microbes are amazing creatures. They’re everywhere — on you, in you, next to you. I find it amazing that they not only make us sick or healthy, they’re also small factories making everything from food to medicine. But if we take a closer look at them, we see that they’re also beautiful. Microbes have an incredible variety of shapes and structures. I admire this natural beauty every time I work with my petri dishes. I’m not an artist. I’m a microbiologist. Almost all the germs on my plates are infectious agents. I know that they can be a source of illness and misery for some people. But I also see their natural beauty and cannot help admiring them. I want to show people that nature is beautiful in all its forms.
Olga Pinegina is from St. Petersburg, Russia. Since childhood, she’s been interested in biology, and now works as a microbiologist in the Department of Clinical Microbiology at First Pavlov State Medical University. She graduated from Perm State University Faculty of Biology in 2006, and now works in a lab. She is @in_petri on Instagram.
