FEM

The panel On Roots and Fruits is a collection of talks from some of the founding members of FEMeeting: Women in Art, Science and Technology on the impact of its conferences and other community activities, and their perspective on the future development of women in art, science and technology. FEMeeting aims to disseminate projects carried out by individuals who identify as women to contribute to (a) the development of research methodologies in art and science and (b) the development of collaboration strategies that can increase knowledge-sharing and bring communities together. 

Speakers:

• Marta de Menezes (PT) 
• Dalila Honorato (GR/PT) 
• Ebru Yetiskin (TR)
• Ionat Zurr (AU) 
• Jo Wei
• Kathy High (US)
• Laura Beloff (FI)
• María Antonia González Valerio (MX)
• Victoria Vesna (US) 

Marta de Menezes (PT)

Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist with an MA in Fine Arts, Univ. Lisbon, a MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture, Univ. Oxford, and a PhD candidate, Univ. Leiden. She has been exploring the intersection between Art and Biology, working in research laboratories demonstrating that new biological technologies can be used as new art medium. Her work has been presented in exhibitions, articles and lectures worldwide. She is the artistic director of Ectopia and Director of Cultivamos Cultura.

Dalila Honorato (GR/PT)

Dalila Honorato, Ph.D, is a facilitator of safe spaces for hosting the interaction of ideas around liminal issues in the frame of Art&Sci. Tenured faculty in aesthetics & visual semiotics at the Ionian University, Greece, her research focus is on embodiment, monstrosity, the uncanny and the acrobatic balance between phobia and paraphilia. She is the founder of the conference Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art & Science and the co-starter of FEMeeting: Women in Art, Science & Technology.

Ebru Yetiskin (TR)

Ebru Yetiskin is a researcher based in Istanbul. She works on the interaction of science, technology, politics and contemporary art. She is affiliated with The Department of Social Sciences and Humanities in Istanbul Technical University. Her research on digital cultures includes curatorial works such as exhibitions, workshops and public conferences. She is a member of AICA – International Association of Contemporary Art Critics and IstanbuLab – Science, Technology, Society Platform in Turkey.

Ionat Zurr (AU)

Dr. Ionat Zurr is an artist researcher who is considered to be a pioneer and a leader in the field of Biological Arts (AKA as Bioart) both as a practitioner and a theoretician. She has a cross position; the Chair of the Fine Arts Discipline at the School of Design and SymbioticA at the School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia. Together with Oron Catts she formed the internationally renowned Tissue Culture & Art Project in 1996.

Jo Wei

Jo Wei is a curator and researcher, and the founder of Pan Bio-art Studio. Among the list of her many curations are Quasi-Nature: Bio Art, Borderline, Laboratory (2019) and Ars Electronica in Shenzhen (2019) and Post-Life (2018), part of the Beijing Media Art Biennale. Currently a researcher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China, she is an international adviser for the European Commission’s STARTS Prize (2019), and member of the International Program Committee of ISEA (2020).

Laura Beloff (FI)

Laura Beloff (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed artist and a researcher in the cross section of art, technology and science. Additionally to research papers, articles and book-chapters, the outcome of the research is in a form of process-based installations, wearable artifacts, experiments with scientific methods, which deal with the merger of the technological and biological matter at large. Currently, she is Associate Professor and the Head of ViCCA program at Aalto University, Finland.

Kathy High (US)

Kathy High is an interdisciplinary artist who considers living systems, animal sentience, and ethical dilemmas of biotechnology and medical industries. She produces digital works, sculptures, performances and installations posing queer and feminist questions about our uneasy relation to this messy world. High is Professor & Head of the Arts Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. She is the recipient of awards from National Endowment for the Arts, and Guggenheim Foundation.

María Antonia González Valerio (MX)

María Antonia González Valerio, Philosopher and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She works within the research line of ontology-aesthetics and the interdisciplinary line of arts, sciences and humanities. Head of the research group Arte+Ciencia (Art+Science). Her most recent book: Cabe los límites. Escritos sobre filosofía natural desde la ontología estética (México: UNAM/Herder, 2016. She is also curator and member of the artistic collective Bios Ex Machina.

Victoria Vesna (US)

Victoria Vesna is an Artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and is Director of the UCLA Art|Sci center. With her installations she investigates how communication technologies affect collective behavior and perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation (PhD, University of Wales, 2000). She has exhibited artwork in 20+ solo exhibitions, 70+ group shows, published in 20+ papers, two edited volumes and gave 100+ invited talks in the last decade.