Gentleman Scientist
2017-currently
Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat
2010-currently
Since 2010, I have been modifying, and traveling and performing with a lab coat artwork called Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat. This garment was originally designed for me by Shanti Freed (UK) from several used lab coats as part of a collaborative photo shoot with Kira O’Reilly (IRL) at the University of Birmingham in 2010. It was modified again by Billie Mclaughlin in 2017 to include fabric receptacles for eight snow globes come petri dishes to allow sampling and incubation of microbes close to human body. Reminiscent of breasts, egg sacks, cupping techniques, and Louise Bourgeois’ Avenza (1968-69) Latex costumes and Sarah Lucas Self Portrait with Eggs (1996) this coat now serves as a site of discourse around augmented interspecies reproduction.
Since inception the coat has been worn in various labs and galleries, playing with my children in the park, at a fancy dress party, and buried deep in the muck of the shores of the Detroit River. It has literally and metaphorically accrued layers of meaning and microbes as it moves through representation - performance - space and time. It was originally intended as a garment to prevent the ongoing redistribution of microbes and other contaminants between the laboratory setting and external ecological and cultural environments. It now serves as an homage to the futility of attempting to control microscopic forms of life as they travel through our bodies, across international borders, into our homes, and throughout our planetary ecology.
In 2017/2018 I developed a performative alter ego called the Gentleman Scientist. A version of this persona appeared in a collaborative performance with Kira O’Reilly called Bewildering, as part of “Trust Me I’m an Artist” series, WAAG Society, The Netherlands. The Gengleman Scientist hosted “Feasting the Lab” an event marking the opening of the new INCUBATOR Art Lab laboratory at the University of Windsor.
Feasting The Lab from Jennifer Willet on Vimeo.
Since then, the Gentleman Scientist also gave a performance and artist Lecture as part of the Bioart Series hosted by IOTA Institute at several venues in Halifax in 2019.
Contributions:
Original Coat design/fabrication: Shanti Freed for a project in collaboration with Kira O’Reilly.
Coat Modification: Billie Mclaughlin
This project is supported by the University of Windsor, SSHRC Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canada Research Chair Program.
Image Credits:
1) Kira O’Reilly and Jennifer Willet, Refolding (Laboratory Architecture Twins) University of Birminham, UK, 2010. Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning
2) Jennifer Willet, Jogging with Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat Windsor, Ontario, 2017. Photo Credit: Josh Babcock
3-4) Jennifer Willet, Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat (in progress) Windsor, Ontario, 2017. Photo Credit: Billie Mclaughlin
5) Jennifer Willet, Burying Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat From “Life in the Soil Workshop,” INCUBATOR Lab, School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor, 2017.Photo Credit: Shallen Chen
6) Jennifer Willet, Untitled: Traveling Laboratory / Coat Design, 2017.
7) Jennifer Willet, From “Feasting The Lab,” INCUBATOR Lab, School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor, 2017. Photo Credit: Justin Elliott
8) Jennifer Willet & Kira O’Reilly, Be-Wildering, WAAG Society, Amsterdam NL, 2017. Photo credit: Bas de Brouwer
