Evolutionaries

Even, or maybe especially, in times of a global pandemic it is crucial to experiment, think and be creative in the field of art connecting to the (life) sciences and working with living matter. This year's bio art & design exhibition has an extra festive ring to it, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the BAD Award.

The BAD Award projects, as ever, go beyond science communication. They zoom in on aesthetic and often also ethical aspects enabled by discoveries in the life sciences and the applications of biotechnology: from the possibility of same-sex biological parents and the colonial origin of zombie stories in relation to virology, to what can be learned from watching a plant play tag with a machine.

Next to the winning artists & scientists of this year's competition - Dasha Tsapenko & Han Wösten (University Utrecht), Nadine Botha & Henry de Vries (Amsterdam UMC) and Sissel Marie Tonn & Heather Leslie (VU) & Juan Garcia Vallejo (Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc) - we bring together nine winning artists from previous BAD editions, one representing each year. This means the exhibition will comprise of twelve bio art and design installations and projects, some completely new, others building further on earlier works, but all celebrating and intensifying the collaborations and connections between art & science.

Jury of the BAD Award 2020 William Myers, head of the jury, writer, curator, professor, bioart & design Fred Balvert, Science communicator Erasmus MC, Science Gallery Rotterdam Xandra van der Eijk, artist and designer, winner BAD Award 2017, co-curator Polarities 2019 Nienke Binnendijk, Director Blue City Lab (wetlab for biodesign and bioart) Joyce Lebbink, Principal investigator at the department of Molecular Genetics, Erasmus MC Simon/e van Saarloos, writer and philosopher Karen Verschooren, curator and head of exhibitions, STUK Belgium

Curator Evolutionaries Angelique Spaninks

Visit the exhibition online