BAD Award winners 2023 announced!

Anna Vershinina & Wieger Wamelink

| ExoGarden: 3D-Printed Modular Eco-Habitats for Earth and Space

Modern architecture has a profound negative impact on the environment, accounting for 40% of total carbon emissions. ExoGarden is an innovative architectural prototype that allows rapid cultivation of shelter and food. Harnessing recent breakthroughs in space food production, this modular system exhibits the capacity to sustain life within resource-deprived, extreme areas on Earth and in space, while also bioremediating the environment. Such life-promoting, resilient strategies empower communities in harsh environments and set new paradigms for inhabitation.

Hung Lu Chan + Floortje Bouwkamp & Floris de Lange

| Atlas of Aliens: The Other Within Us

Driven by curiosity, humans' alien imaginations serve as a lens to perceive other worlds; however, they are entirely shaped by preconceptions. This project explores diverse alien interpretations, highlighting their sociopolitical influence on perceptions of otherness. Utilizing fMRI and Midjourney, our alien imaginations will be investigated personally and collectively by applying guided meditation to individuals and AI respectively. Ultimately, an atlas visualizing aliens from the internal worlds will be developed, prompting audiences to introspect their cognitive biases and perceptions of otherness.

Pamela Varela + Ella Hebendanz & Joris Koene

re-c(O)unting*

re-c(O)unting is an artistic-scientific research questioning how we can transform the production of knowledge; it is a decolonial healing journey into the transgenerational trauma our lands and bodies store. Deconstructing the binarisms between nature/technology, science/spirituality, male/female, we zoom out and into the relationship between Europe and Latin America. Re-"discovering" our female-assigned bodies, we create an extended-video installation accompanied by a live performance. We delve into our deepest insides to reveal the magick of science and retell the stories.

*We use cunt to refer to vulva while reappropriating the swear word. "Count" means to acknowledge, to tell a story, and to count numbers, so it links to "computation". The O alludes to the "big O", which refers to the orgasm but is also an algorithmical term. The circle is a hypnotic shape. re-c(O)unting encompasses the stories to be retold, the cunts to be acknowledged, computation as a field to be reclaimed, and the altered states to be experienced.