BioCurious

When Microbes Dream Wall Mural and Baroque Biology Paper Series by Jennifer Willet
Curated by Jennifer Matotek & Julie Rae Tucker
March 14, 2023 - October 1, 2023
Art Windsor Essex, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
https://artwindsoressex.ca/exhibitions/biocurious/

Art Windsor Essex presents the group exhibition BioCurious, on view until October 1st, 2023. Curated by Jennifer Matotek & Julie Rae Tucker, the exhibition features the work of eighteen artists exploring living materials as their subject matter. This exhibition includes a new version of the "When Microbes Dream" wall mural by INCUBATOR Art Lab Director Dr. Jennifer Willet and the "Baroque Biology Paper Series".

Curated in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and impacts of climate change, the exhibition asks pressing questions about how we have impacted the world we inhabit and how this changing world, marred by our draining of its resources, has shaped our existence. How do we create definitions of culture that include biological culture? In what ways are bodies and objects co-created with nature, during the cycle of life? How can art help us understand how the human body is permeable to, and comprised of, other life forms, and inherently connected to – not detached from – the land? How can contemporary art help us understand the genre of “landscape” more expansively? How might art depict our biological futures? What changes must happen now to heal the land, our bodies, and the places we call home?

Sitting at the intersection of art and science, the works in this exhibition focus on humanity’s relationship to the elements—water, plant life, and the air that we breathe—and how this relationship has morphed through trade and resource extraction. The selected artists, who identify as Canadian and/or Indigenous, intertwine scientific and cultural knowledge to propose different ways of understanding living bodies and the land.

Artists: Siku Allooloo, Alana Bartol, Christi Belcourt, Daphne Boyer, Hannah Claus, Nicole Clouston, Becky Comber, Ruth Cuthand, Lisa Hirmer, Charmaine Lurch, Laura Magnusson, Maria Simmons, Kara Springer, Laura St. Pierre, Jennifer Wanner, Amanda White, Jennifer Willet and Xiaojing Yan.
(Text provided by Art Windsor Essex)