Artist Talk: Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Jenna Sutela

​​Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an artist and biohacker who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Her work has been shown internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum; Daejeon Biennale; Guangzhou Triennial; Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale; Transmediale Berlin; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and PS1 MOMA, New York. Dr. Dewey-Hagborg is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi, a Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program Art of Practice Fellow, and an affiliate of Data & Society. She is also a founding board member of Digital DNA, a European Research Council funded project investigating the changing relationships between digital technologies, DNA and evidence as well as a co-founder/co-curator of REFRESH, an inclusive and politically engaged collaborative platform at the intersection of art, science, and technology. ​​

Jenna Sutela is a Finnish artist based in Berlin who works with words, sounds, and other living media. She engages with both futuristic and ancient materials in audiovisual pieces, sculptures, and performances. Sutela’s work seeks to override aspects of culture based on a survival-of-the-fittest narrative in favor of symbiotic relationships between all life forms, both organic and synthetic. Her microbial collaborators include Physarum polycephalum, the “many-headed” slime mold with a decentralized nervous system, and the extremophilic Bacillus subtilis nattō bacterium. Recently, she has also collaborated with artificial neural networks. Sutela’s work has been presented internationally at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Serpentine Galleries, London; Shanghai Biennale, and other locations.