A few years ago a Minister of Education in a EU country pronounced on an official occasion: “the school is a firm”. By the same token, one could also say, “the university is a firm” (not just private universities), “the Church is a firm” (not meaning just the Vatican bank), the “State is a firm” (the State as such, generically, not just kleptocratic or patrimonialist states), or even “the family is a firm” (not just “family firms”), even though conventional textbook economics in the West (e.g. Paul Samuelson’s textbook) used to distinguish sharply between “firms” and “households”

The project Decon explores the use of biotechnology methods and materials as art media, for the development of paintings literally alive that deconstruct themselves while exhibited. In Decon replicas of Piet Mondrian geometric paintings were created using bacterial support medium. The colors in these paintings are progressively degraded by Pseudomonas putida bacteria.