Biotechnology is a Technology of Love… originates from my experience of human, interspecies and universal sensations of love working in laboratories, in gardens, kitchens, in my family, bioart and art communities, as well as hiking and camping in the outdoors.In this work, the letters L-O-V-E are cut out of leather and felt scraps and placed into petri dishes, and agar is poured over the letters. Of course, the letters are filled with microbes that bloom overnight in the incubator. The petri dishes are arraigned in a similar formulation to Robert Indiana’s LOVE (1967) and photographed.

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) […]

In July 2011, twenty artists, scientists, filmmakers, theorists and students engaged in an art/science research experiment where a diverse set of individuals came together to live and work at a bioart field research station in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.  BioARTCAMP was a collaborative art/science project designed by Jennifer Willet and co-produced by INCUBATOR Lab and The Banff Centre.  Participants worked to build a portable laboratory in the forest and conducted a variety of scientific, ecological, creative, and theoretical projects.  BioARTCAMP served to provide alternative visions of of the biotech future: ecological, embodied and responsible visions of our relations and responsibilities to the other […]

An INCUBATOR in Sheep’s Clothing is a life-sized sculpture of a mountain sheep with a peek-a-boo door opening to a functional incubator in the stomach of the animal.  The sculpture is constructed primarily with wood, Styrofoam, and covered in sheep’s wool and leather – providing quite a natural appearance and smell. The enclosed incubator houses live yeast samples visible through the window in the incubator door. 

Using performative interventions and photographic media, artists Kira O’Reilly (Ireland/Finland) and Jennifer Willet (Canada) collaborate to create eventful photographic presences that explore how we think and reconceptualise The Body, our own bodies, life and living systems within the ever changing contexts of the Life Sciences, evolving biotechnologies and biomedical research.