[-empyre-] writing from Buffalo: Coalesce Lab / BioArt and Food

Amanda McDonald Crowley amandamcdc at gmail.com
Fri Mar 25 04:29:38 AEDT 2016


Hi Renate and all,

On Mar 24, 2016, at 9:13 AM, Renate Terese Ferro wrote:

> I am struck at this morning, as I get ready to participate in an Art and Biology
> workshop


Excited to hear that you are in Buffalo for the launch of Paul Vanouse's Coalesce Lab initiative. I can't wait to get up there myself at some point!

I'm sorry that I have been slow to respond these last few days. I have a seriously ill cat at the moment and we've been spending a lot of time going back and forth to the veterinary hospital. Perhaps poignant to this discussion is that he has serious issues with his Gastro Intestinal Tract - we're not sure what just yet, or even whether it is treatable or terminal. So I've been a bit distracted, but remaining hopeful.

I will leave it to Nicole to respond about WFiM. But I think you'll find links to both the exhibition and the non-profit from her web site. 

I can speak a little to the Bio-Art / lab and food question though. Bioart is a term I am not especially fond of, but I won't go into that here, because it certainly has some currently in this specific area of practice.

Interestingly, right at the moment I am working on finalizing a report I've been doing, undertaking research for Kathy High on the numerous bioart labs that are being established across the globe, to help her and The Sanctuary for Independent Media as they establish their NATURE Lab program and activities in Troy, New York. http://www.mediasanctuary.org/naturelab

One of the things that is so exciting about the NATURE Lab project for me, is that it is part of an integrated series of projects and spaces established by The Sanctuary including media labs; Collard City Growers - an urban food project; the L Lot - a bio remediation project... So food, art and biology will definitely figure centrally in the programs they are developing. It is very grass roots, locally engaged, has a strong community focus, is deeply concerned with issued of access, and also a integrated emphasis on art and creative practices. Incidentally, Kathy also mentioned that she has been lurking and enjoying the conversation when we last spoke - perhaps this might prod you into contributing a small post about the project (and your work more generally) Kathy? ;)

Suzanne Anker runs an entire course on food projects in the bio-art world at SVA in New York: http://bioart.sva.edu/food-projects-in-bio-art/
Anker has also established a bioart lab at SVA http://www.suzanneanker.com/bio-art-lab/  
Additionally food systems certainly figure significantly in Anker's own work as well. 

In 2012 I organized an exhibition at CalIT2 Gallery at the University of California, San Diego. Titled CONSUME, several of the projects in the show specifically looked at biology, art, and food systems
http://publicartaction.net/consume/

I included Beatriz da Costa's "Dying for the Other" a video triptych juxtaposing the lives of breast cancer research mice and a human (herself) suffering from the same disease. The piece was part of the series of work she was developing towards the end of her life called "The Cost of Life". Another work in the series was called "The Life Garden" which was an anti-cancer medicinal and demonstration garden, that we installed at Eyebeam when da Costa was in-residence there.  - and food and health certainly featured as a key element in that body of work.
http://bdacosta.net/ 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatriz_da_Costa

Brandon Balangee's "Committed", "Dedicated", and "Tears of Ochún" projects respond to the global crisis of fisheries worldwide but more specifically the unraveling of the food chain in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 BP Deep Horizon oil spill. Brandon actually also worked with Nicole Caruth out in Omaha to exhibit the other significant, and very beautiful installation that is part of that body of work, titled Collapse. Documentation of the full series is here: http://brandonballengee.com/collapse-the-cry-of-silent-forms/

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr project - Tissue Culture and Art Project's Remains of Disembodies Cuisine - documents a performance ‘feast’ of tiny, semi-living frog steaks that were grown for almost three months in bioreactors, with video made in collaboration with Jens Hauser. The installation played on the notion of different cultural perceptions of what is edible and ironically offered the possibility of eating meat without killing animals, creating a victimless meat. However it also provided a serious critique of current methods of tissue culture which require the use of animal-derived products as a substantial part of the nutrients provided to the cells, so not so "victimless" after all.
http://tcaproject.org/

And for those on the list who don't know, Oron and Ionat were also key players in the establishment of possibly one of the first bio-art labs, SymbioticA - a lab that provides artists and researchers a space to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/

And Stefani Bardin, who we heard from earlier in this thread about her mapping project with Marina and the NYU research group might also be interested to pipe back into the conversation briefly to talk a little about her M2A project, which is currently installed at the Cathedral of St John the Divine here in NYC in an exhibition curated by Kirby Gookin and Robin Kahn titled "The Value of Food". http://www.stjohndivine.org/programs/vof/about/exhibition I wouldn't describe M2A as a bio-art project per se, but it is a project that resulted in a very interesting art-science collaboration between Stefani and a gastroenterologist, Bradon Kuo.

So these are a few examples of work that I think really deeply address this question of cross disciplinary collaboration, and also our food systems; and many are also taking a deep look at food justice and social justice issues more broadly.

best

Amanda





--
Amanda McDonald Crowley 
Cultural Worker / Curator
http://publicartaction.net

@amandamcdc


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