Johannesburg - The University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Creative Microbiology Research Colab (CMRC) will on Thursday present the first exhibition of biotechnology to be held in South Africa and on the African continent.
The CMRC is an inter-faculty collaboration dedicated to producing creative work located at the interface between microbiology, visual representation, and creative practice.
Biotechnological art, or bioart as it is also known, involves artmaking practices that deal with the application of biotechnologies.
This includes living and non/living matter which are used as raw material and subjects for artistic production, using scientific practices and protocols.
Meanwhile, UJ’s exhibition foregrounds the intermeshing of human and microbial life to create awareness of how humans are in constant contact with the microbial world.
The artworks are also made using various microbes – including bacteria and mycelia – and other living and non/living matter to render the invisible visible.
The exhibition also marks the launch of the CMRC biolaboratory located in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) FABLAB. It is a fully equipped microbiology lab, which offers creative practitioners access to the kinds of specialised scientific equipment and expertise required to engage with wet biology practices.
It was founded by Prof Leora Farber, Director of the Visual Identities in Art and Design (VIAD) Research Centre, FADA, and Prof Tobias Barnard, Director of the Water and Health Research Centre (WHRC), Faculty of Health Sciences.
The CMRC is also based on the conviction that bioart holds the potential to generate new insights, perspectives, scholarly and indigenous knowledge that arise from, and pertain to, an African context, something Prof Farber is thrilled about.
“This is exciting because it is an unusual combination of two different disciplines and it is a sense of adventure and innovation as disciplines are no longer discreet,” he said.
“It is much more productive to work across disciplines in order to come up with something creative and new. We are embracing bioart as a new opportunity to see what can be done in the African context.”
The exhibition will be accompanied by a digital catalogue, as well as a physical, online and hybrid public programme, featuring the artists and experts across a range of fields in the Humanities, Social and Health Sciences, as well as those working in Visual Art and Design disciplines.
The exhibition runs from July 21 to August 19, 2023.