Non-Profit Group
Roles: Lead Organizer, Creative Director
A biomaterials studios based in the communal Genspace lab.
Between 2022 - 2024, I organized and directed the Genspace Biomaterials Studio, a community driven biomaterial collective of artists, designers, and biologists. The group’s focus is to explore, create, and innovate the intersection between materials, biology, and design.
I lead every aspect of this group, from organizing meetups and classes, setting up internal admin infrastructure, designing group graphics, and creating commissioned projects alongside participants from a range of backgrounds. Under my direction, the group expanded ~4x it’s size of dedicated members and set the stage for the new Genspace BioArtist Incubator program.
We would experiment making and fabricating with various organic materials. Below are examples of a past project involving a bio-foam lamp inspired by organic blob forms and the classic Novo lamp pendant. The final prototypes were made with a rotomold custom built in the lab.
Group Commissions
The group worked on several commissions for local events and art pieces. While I was leading the group, we spent a year focused on mycelium (the roots of museums). One commission was for a local NYC episodic documentary, where we created a mycelium circular tablet as a writing prop for a documented tea ceremony led by Chinese calligrapher Huang Xiang. His idea was that this written tablet would fade away underneath the Grandfather tree of Sunset Park, eroding his poetry of peace back into the earth. After several decades living in NYC, he was heavily inspired by graffiti.
For another project, we created several facade concepts for a rock climbing gym. The finalized concept was the tiled version, where several tile styles were grown and experimented with different colored substrate material (like tissue paper). A scaled version was produced as a showcase model.
Biomaterial Workshops
I also extended the group outside of the Genspace lab, teaching students and interested adults about biomaterials in local colleges such as NYU, Cornell, and Parsons.
Workshop at NYU ITP
Construct 3D Conference Workshop
First of Many, “The Living Room” Bioart Exhibit
After 2 years of producing various projects, we wanted to showcase the group’s successes in an art show called “The Living Room”. With an attendance of 200+ guests for a one day show, it kickstarted the Genspace BioArtist Incubator program that occurred annually at the same time frame of this first show. While “The Living Room” was successfully put together with a shoestring budget, future shows now have small funds for the artists to produce new experimental work.
