RESISTANCE AND BIO-ART: THEORY AND PRACTICE

California State University, Los Angeles
A Global Virtual Roundtable
Written by: Lyndsay McKay

On March 16, Dr. Jennifer Willet had the pleasure of speaking at Bioart & Resistance: A Global Roundtable hosted by Dr. Pablo Baler and The American Communities Program at California State University’s Public Humanities Centre. Dr. Willet spoke alongside a panel of her colleagues, internationally located bioartists; Ionat Zurr, Polona Tratnik, Dolores Steinman, and Nina Sellars. Each artist invited the audience into a discussion about their work, with a dedicated focus on how it intersects with this year’s theme: Resistance.

For Dr. Willet, resistance comes in many forms. As both an artist and a researcher, she admits that the cross-over between science and art can lead to confusing conversations because of the separate rule books that govern these disciplines. Dr. Willet expresses resistance through her refusal to conform to a single category. Over the last 10+ years, with the development of INCUBATOR Art Lab, Willet suggests the prolonged nature of resistance within institutional spaces has allowed her to fund and build this certified lab in an art environment. In this circumstance, Willet describes the often-invisible nature of this type of resistance through listening, waiting, adapting, moulding, crossing her t's on paperwork and meeting institutional expectations.