the artist as contaminant

BioArt is still a young, and in many people's minds, highly questionable field--still new enough that the pushing, negotiating and baby step-style struggling forward remains very much a central part of this hybrid practice. BioArtists will enjoy more than a few healthy doses of academic skepticism, social wariness and plain old paralytic, bureaucratic quicksand with each new project. This is all before one considers the practical cost of working with such precious artistic materials as 'life', that have been classified as biohazardous and are therefore not only difficult to attain but also difficult to afford, ship, and store. Add to this, that arts funding bodies have yet to recognize BioArt as an actual legitimate art form (though they are starting to). Galleries may balk at the extreme ethics clearance and safety standards required to be met in order to display such works. The newest new media just doesn't have it easy by any stretch. Is this due to biology's sordid history or because you just can't trust an artist?

Artists trying to eke out creative/research space in an established scientific laboratory may find themselves embodying the social reality of 'the contaminant'. The contaminant, a foreign and unwelcome body displaying deviant functions within a highly regulated system, may notice that attempts at syncretism are suspect. In the carefully cultivated aseptic environment of the laboratory, no body is more a paradigmatic misfit than the messy, unruly, unpredictable artist.

I've experienced a small handful of different types of laboratory environments now, in my fledgling BioArt practice. I've come to realize that my research period at SymbioticA was a rare gift indeed, where scientists made themselves into indispensable allies, and where creative autonomy in the lab is a central tenet of the entire facility. I am deeply indebted to Dr Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts for fighting the good fight to have BioArt practice recognized and respected within an academic context (at UWA) so that I was able to come along and play without too much trouble on the playground. I'm also grateful beyond belief for the generosity of Dr Andrew Pelling and his team of student researchers at uOttawa who have accepted me into their milieu--in particular, Dan Modulevsky who is working with me directly to experiment with and brainstorm creative ideas around coaxing microorganisms into becoming art objects. My thesis advisor, Dr Tagny Duff has been pushing on tirelessly at Concordia the past couple of years to foster some level of comfort and acceptance within the biology department so that artists such as myself might be able to get some work done in the facilities available. I'm the first student from Fine Arts to gain access to the biology lab at Concordia, all thanks to Tagny's work towards this end, but it's been a bit of a rough start so far. Nobody wants to do any real favours to an outsider, an interloper with no discernible right to be there. My ten various biosafety training certificates don't count for a whole hell of a lot, but I AM in now nonetheless--I've broken through boundary of the protective skin around the laboratory and can begin my subcutaneous work. 

Dr Michael Sacher, who runs the cell culture lab at Concordia, has agreed to allow me to use the upstairs lab since it was not being used much by his own graduate students--most of them work in the main cluster of labs downstairs. In fact, I was told that the space was practically abandoned. I've met the lab technician for all of his labs, who is a lovely person but also busy with her regular workload and not necessarily interested in taking on any extra tasks that may arise from the introduction of a foreigner into the environment. It's a 'don't ask for much and stay out of the way' kind of arrangement, where I'm basically lucky to be allowed access at all and I'm on my own in there. This particular contaminant is tolerated, but just barely. Interestingly, my work in the lab today was not in isolation after all--four other students floated in and out of the lab doing various quick cell culture activities, or perhaps to witness the contaminant (or both). Nobody was interested in communicating with me and certainly nobody smiled. Lab consumables that I considered common consumables, such as boxes of nitrile gloves, disappeared from sight when I was observed to be using them. I worried after that, that the paper towels on the counter might also disappear. I had flashbacks to elementary school, when I arrived to an east coast small town, fresh from a west coast big city: in the first week, my little girl shoes mysteriously disappeared from the mat outside the classroom during lunch so that I couldn't go home to eat. Today, when I asked politely if anyone knew what had happened to the box of gloves on the counter, which I needed in order to continue my task of thawing vulnerable cells and getting them situated in new nutrient media as quickly as possible, I was met with the question, "Oh, YOUR gloves?" Nope, they weren't mine, but I didn't realize they weren't everybody's.

Despite my excruciating awkwardness in this new lab environment and the slight discomfort/curiosity my presence has already caused, I did manage to thaw and plate the two osteosarcoma cell types I will be working with, and they are now incubating happily towards confluency. This accomplishment alone, in light of the bureaucracy I've waded through in the past several months, is a small miracle. I'll be back to the lab to visit them on Friday and give them more nutrient media. I'm sure that in due time, the anathema that my artistic presence is in the Concordia lab will become one of its strengths.