BMW France is bringing a new version of The vitreous body to Paris Photo, where the project by artist Lara Tabet and curator Yasmine Chemali will be shown from 12 to 15 November at the Grand Palais. The presentation, at stand C01, follows the work's debut at Les Rencontres d'Arles earlier this year and arrives in a completely redesigned layout, with three new pieces made specifically for the Paris fair.

Tabet, a Lebanese medical biologist and visual artist based in Marseille, has built the project around a technique she calls bacteriography. She collects water from rivers, canals, fountains and roadside puddles around Marseille, then lets the microbial communities in each sample grow in Petri dishes before transferring them onto unexposed colour photographic film. In effect, living organisms do the drawing, and the resulting images are translated into contemporary stained glass and UV prints on glass. New bioplastic works extend the same idea, mixing nutrients for bacteria with photographic emulsion.

The title borrows from anatomy: the vitreous body is the transparent gel that fills the eye and lets light through. For Tabet, the term ties together perception, gelatin and glass, the materials at the heart of the work. The project traces a personal map of the waters she has crossed, and it explores how images, living organisms and the environment shape one another.

The presentation is part of BMW ART MAKERS, the carmaker's annual programme giving an artist and curator carte blanche to develop a project from research to public display. BMW has partnered with Paris Photo for 24 years, and this year's project carries official recognition from the French Ministry of Culture as part of the bicentenary of photography. BMW is also supplying a fleet of electric vehicles for collectors, gallerists and guests during the fair.