Department of Fine Arts
ECH building
Tel 519 888-4567 x36923
Baroque Biology presents a feminist science-fiction where biotechnology manifests interspecies collaboration, reproduction, theatre and storytelling as a means to re-imagine our shared biotech future. The exhibition presents a series of imaginary biotechnological vignettes including digital images, performative sculptures, and living cultures; where non-human organisms interact with humans in an effort to convey information about complex biological processes. The artist reimagines laboratory aesthetics as feminine, gawdy, and fantastical in direct contradiction to the norms of contemporary laboratory design. The artworks are counterintuitive, imagining biotechnology research as an integrated part of our planetary ecology and everyday life. Like fairy tales for a biotech future, each allegory focuses on a mammal, microbe, plant or insect, that attempts to communicate with humans in a helpful manner about the biological processes they employ for survival, reproduction, or aesthetic pleasure. Baroque Biology critiques institutional hierarchies by encouraging unconventional daydreaming and welcoming new models of participation in the laboratory.
Reclamation was created during a residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island. During the course of my residency I frequently visited the shoreline, digging into the sand and recording the waves of Lake Ontario with a hydrophone in an attempt to reconnect and intervene with the water, land and self.
The exhibitions run from January 16 to March 7, 2020.
Jennifer Willet, Baroque Biology (Paper Theatre), detail, 2019. Photo Justin Elliott.
Melissa General, Reclamation, detail, 2014, digital video, 6:27 min. Image courtesy of the artist.
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Office of Indigenous Relations.