"Conformations" Opening Reception

Laura Splan’s interdisciplinary work mines the materiality of biotechnology to reveal poetic subjectivities. Her mixed media projects destabilize notions of the presence and absence of bodies evoking the mutability of categories that delineate their status. Her work compels an intimate engagement with detail calling into question how things are made and what they are made of.

Conformations” combines biomedical imagery and artifacts with objects made from the hand-spun fiber of laboratory animals. During her Bioart Residency in conjunction with the Science Center and Integral Molecular, Splan worked out of the biotech lab specializing in antibody research. This circuitously led to her being given over 200 pounds of wool from llamas and alpacas used for antibody production for human drugs. Splan’s exhibition juxtaposes sculptures made with this fiber with photographs and time based artworks.