Art

The BioArt Residency enabled creatives to make art not just about science, but with science.

For our BioArtists in Residence, the lab is the artist studio.

From 2017 to 2021, the Science Center and Integral Molecular launched and held the BioArt Residency program as an unparalleled artist-in-residence experience, that enabled artists to immerse themselves in a laboratory environment and explore the complexities of scientific research.

The artists’ creative interpretations served to engage broader audiences and stimulate meaningful dialogue around art, science, ethics and privacy.

Our Artists

Talia Greene

April 2021 – June 2021

Talia Greene is a Philadelphia based artist. Her work focuses on the intersection of history and place in site-specific, wallpaper-based installations. Greene reframes our past to shed light on current topics related to social justice and the environment. In 2018 she received a Percent for Art commission to create an interactive mural at the Philadelphia City Archives. Greene has shown her work in exhibitions across the country and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Drexel University.

Rebecca Rutstein

January 2021 – March 2021

Rebecca Rutstein's work expands upon her interests in geology, microbiology, marine science and the undercurrents that continually shape and reshape our world. Much of her practice engages with the visual interplay between micro and macro environments, articulating fractal patterns found in nature. Visualizing data and maps, Rutstein's paintings and installations often juxtapose opposing stylistic and conceptual frameworks: expressive/restrained, graphic/atmospheric, organic/geometric, micro/macro, handmade/mechanized, linear/solid. Through ongoing collaborations with scientists, much of her recent work and upcoming projects focus on the sublime and wonder of the deep sea, shedding light on a world hidden from view. Rutstein attempts to make the invisible visible, to connect the viewer with the natural world. As her work evolves, Rutstein feels passionately about creating interactive and immersive installations meant to deepen one’s connection to these unseen places, processes and networks, forging a dialogue about environmental stewardship in the face of climate change.

Mina Zarfsaz

July 2020 – September 2020

Mina Zarfsaz is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and system thinker who works across the fields of art, technology, philosophy, architecture and design. Her work seeks to invert common tools and social control to create dialogue, exchange critical perspectives, generate questions and ideally inspire a better understanding of what we perceive as reality and its representations. Zarfsaz’s work explores grey areas that make humans complicated and interesting. Her immersive, or participatory projects invite the spectator to reconsider empathy by situating them at the center of a performative act and aim at creating uniquely effective spaces that forge intimate and visceral connections between audience members, changing paradigms and behavior.

Laura Splan

March 2020 - June 2020 & April 2018 – June 2018

Laura Splan is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of science, technology, and culture. Her research-driven, conceptually based art practice connects hidden artifacts of biotechnology to everyday lives through embodied interactions and sensory engagement using a wide range of media, including experimental materials, digital media, and craft processes. Her work has been exhibited around the world, including at the 2021 Bruges Triennial, BioBAT Art Space (Brooklyn), the New York Hall of Science, the David J. Spencer CDC Museum (Atlanta), the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland), the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), and the Beall Center for Art + Technology (Irvine). She has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, Harvestworks, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Splan lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, in a building that has been both a pharmaceutical factory and a knitting factory.

IMRSV Arts

August 2019 – November 2019

IMRSV Arts is an organization that uses new media technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, Projection Mapping, and Light Design, to create interactive experiences. By combining art and data visualization, we aim to generate moments that build a dialogue between humans, online and in person.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg

November 2018 – January 2019

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a transdisciplinary artist and educator who is interested in art as research and critical practice. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material (hair, cigarette butts, chewed up gum) collected in public places.

Deirdre Murphy

July 2018 – September 2018

Deirdre Murphy has been researching the effects of climate change on bird migration, using the visual data that scientists share with her to conceptualize and execute her paintings. Her fascination with avian migratory patterns and the effects of global warming have led her research to Hawk Mountain Bird Sanctuary, Powdermill Nature Reserve and Drexel University’s Academy of Natural Science and most recently the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge.

Orkan Telhan

September 2017 – November 2017

Orkan Telhan is Associate Professor of Fine Arts - Emerging Design Practices at University of Pennsylvania, School of Design. He holds a Ph.D. in Design and Computation from MIT's Department of Architecture. He was part of the MIT Media Laboratory and MIT Design Laboratory. Orkan Telhan’s work focuses on the design of interrogative objects, interfaces, and media, engaging with critical issues in social, cultural, and environmental responsibility.