When Microbes Dream introduces audiences to allegorical visions of biotechnology as a technology of abundance, rooted in interspecies collaboration and bespoke ecologies. With this exhibition, the artist reimagines laboratory aesthetics as bountiful, feminine, and gaudy in direct contradiction to scientific norms….

Gratitude Offering for the Organisms is a performance piece and keynote presentation that was delivered at MIT Media Lab’s Bio Summit 4.0. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bio Summit 4.0 took place online, and the keynote was presented over Zoom. During this presentation Willet spoke from within the physical site of INCUBATOR Art Lab….

Calling All Untethered Organisms is a video animation by Jennifer Willet exploring the experience of self-isolation and caring for young children during the first months of the COVID-19 Pandemic…

Baroque Biology presents a feminist science-fiction where biotechnology manifests interspecies collaboration, reproduction, theatre and storytelling as a means to re-imagine our shared biotech future. The exhibition presents a series of imaginary biotechnological vignettes including digital images, performative sculptures, and living cultures; where non-human organisms interact with humans in an effort to convey information about complex biological processes. The artist reimagines laboratory aesthetics as feminine, gawdy, and fantastical in direct contradiction to the norms of contemporary laboratory design. The artworks are counterintuitive, imagining biotechnology research as an integrated part of our planetary ecology and everyday life. Like fairy tales for a […]

Baroque Biology (Paper Theatre) is a series of LB Agar petri dishes containing imaginary biological vignettes where non-human organisms teach humans complex biotechnological processes. Reminiscent of William Hogarth’s serial engravings, each vignette builds on the narrative established in earlier installments. Like fairy tales from a biotech future, each allegory focuses on a fox, or a microbe, a plant or fungi, who tries to communicate with humans in a helpful manner about the biological processes they employ for survival, for reproduction, and/or aesthetic pleasure. Sometimes the human characters are open to receiving the communicated information, and sometimes they are hostile, or […]