Grants and residencies

Research and art

Living matter, liminal bodies and contamination in artistic practice.

Application summary

Funding is sought to support the two final years of my PhD in Artistic Research at Aalto University focussed in environmental humanities and posthumanism, including the realisation of two artworks which focus on the “leakiness” of bodies. Partners in the artworks’ realization are international venues from the field of art & science. The research borrows feminist reading of materiality as characterized by a provisional character of boundaries between entities⁠ (Radomska) and the understanding of the body as an entity that is ontologically leaky (Shildrick, Neimanis). Such concepts suggest, on the one hand, how bodies inherently exceed borders that are culturally assigned. On the other hand, they point at an inherent openness to contamination: life happens on the liminal plane. The works "Semina Aeternitatis" and "Wombs" build on fundamental bioart themes such as the assemblage of living matter and biotechnology and the relation with other species. They aim to inform current theoretical research in environmental humanities and posthuman studies by looking at how negotiation with death and sexuality exceeds the borders of one own’s body, thus interfering with the environment and its organisms. Taking the form of installations featuring sexual hormones, synthetic DNA, and flesh-like microbial biofilm, these works will avoid emphasis on their biotechnological apparatus so as to affirm a daring corporeal aesthetic based on fleshy embodiment and material relationality.

The grant supported my practice-based PhD in Artistic Research on bioart and feminist and queer studies at the Department of Art of the Aalto University, Helsinki. I realised the artworks Semina Aeternitiats and Wombs in collaboration with international scientific laboratories and artistic venues. The dissertation presents insights gained during the realization of two bioart works that imply the manipulation of living matter by means of biotechnology, from a queer and feminist perspective. On the basis of the research conducted, I propose the concept “arts of vulnerability” as a mode for engaging and making art with unstable, living materials and the ethical implications thereof.

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