Experimenta Social # 40:
Working with Life
Date:
Wednesday 28 April, 2pm – 3pm (AEST)
Price: Free
In our first Experimenta Social talks event for 2021 we will hear from two artists based in Tasmania to celebrate the launch of the Experimenta Life Forms exhibition in Hobart.
Svenja Kratz’s trans-disciplinary practice is concerned with exploring the implications of biotechnology research. She is making a significant contribution to the field of Bioart through her art/science practice of working with cell and tissue cultures. Selena de Carvalho also works across many disciplines. She draws inspiration from Tasmania’s unique ecology and bears witness to the disruptions to these relationships. Her work reminds us of the interconnectedness of all life and the environments that support them.
Join us online to hear from these exemplary artists, who will present on their recent work and discuss how both materially and conceptually living systems inspire their distinctive practices.
About the Speakers:
Selena de Carvalho
Selena de Carvalho is an inter-disciplinary artist based in lutruwrita/Tasmania.
Selena de Carvalho
Selena de Carvalho is a cross-disciplinary artist based in Longley, lutruwita/Tasmania. Some highlights include in 2013 she received the Arts Tasmania Dombrovskis Award for her kinetic installation Forecast (the anatomy of change). During 2016 she received the prestigious Harold Shenburg Fellowship as part of Hatched at PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art) for Ecological Haunts (ii). During 2020 she planted trees and developed signage as part of a conversation with the North West Bay river, accompanied the Marine Debris Clean Up on a rubbish collecting journey to the West Coast of lutruwita as well as developing the body of work ‘ready made burn out’. She is a founding member of Messy Table Projects and Earth Centred Law Reading Group.
Her practice responds to notions of personal ecology and human interaction with the environment. Throughout this practice she seeks out materials and environments that have weathered various forms of frontline disturbance, positioning herself in the role of both witness and interpreter. This is the long term and current focus of her creative attention which operates as a framework for deeper inquiry within creative practice braiding numerous mediums including participatory installation, performance, workshops, sculpture, time based media, urban hacking, print media and writing.
Svenja Kratz
Svenja Kratz is an Australian-based media artist interested in trans-disciplinary creative practice, particularly the intersections between science and art.
Svenja KratzAustralia
Svenja Kratz is an Australian-based media artist interested in trans-disciplinary creative practice, particularly the intersections between science and art. Significant bodies of work include: ‘The Absence of Alice’ – a series of mixed media exhibitions originally inspired by the artist’s engagement with the Saos-2 bone cancer cell line, and ‘The Human Skin Experience/Equivalent Project’ – a jewellery project involving tissue engineering practices.
Svenja holds a PhD in Biotechnology and Contemporary Art from QUT and has exhibited her works at a range of national and international venues and events including The Science Gallery Dublin in 2010, The Sydney Powerhouse Museum in 2013, Experimenta Recharge in 2014 and The Science Gallery London in 2019. She has undertaken artist residencies at Symbiotica, Centre of Excellence in the Biological Arts at UWA, in 2010, the Art and Genomics Centre and Leiden University in The Netherlands in 2013, and the University of Queensland in 2015. Most recently, she was awarded a 2021 ANAT Synapse Grant to continue her research across visual art and cell culture. Svenja currently lives in Tasmania and is a lecturer in interdisciplinary creative practice within the School of Creative Arts and Media at UTAS.
