We had a full house at the BioLab Meet-up and Pecha Kucha event Thursday evening. Seasoned BioLabers and prospective members presented their research and artistic practices in the Speculative Life Cluster commons. We also welcomed Alice Jarry into her new role as Lab Director and celebrated the start of Amélie Brindamour’s artist-in-residency—a joint effort between…
In this workshop biologist & artist Nathalie Dubois-Calero will be teaching DIY methods she developed for the micro-propagation of plants and vegetables from infertile or ‘protected’ samples. By controlling hormone levels during the propagation, we will also be able to affect the growth patterns of the plants, allowing for the creation of unusual plant morphologies. Her processes…
Jacqui Beaumont is exhibiting her work, For Luca, at Studio Rialto as a part of the 15th edition of Art Pop—the visual arts component of POP Montreal. This year the group exhibition is exploring themes of movement, discovery, desire, bodies, and secrets. The exhibition will be open from Sept. 25-28 / 11am-8pm and Sept.29 12pm-6pm at…
Nathalie Dubois Calero offered a 2-part microalgae workshop for BioLab members on August 15th and September 11th. In the first part of the workshop, we covered DIY pigment extraction (chlorophyll, β-Carotene etc.) and paper chromatography using everyday solvents. In the second part, we explored how to maintain short and long term microalgae cultures by creating…
Fermented Triptych Kombucha SCOBY, 2019 Kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) is a living organism that continuously forms cellulosic layers. These layers are floating just above the Kombucha liquid, it’s flow and expansion create natural and simple movements. Drawing inspiration from movements found in nature and mindfulness practices, Fermented Triptych, is meant to…
A love letter to our last universal common ancestor.
Sporobole, an artist-run centre located in Sherbrooke, QC, interviewed WhiteFeather Hunter and Denis Groleau in the Biolab Thursday about their collaborative art-sci process and the Salivam project. “The research process encapsulated not only scientific laboratory experiments punctuated by art-based DIYbio approaches, but was also a process of developing a non-hierarchical transdisciplinary research relationship within an…
As a part of Queering the Map’s On_Site exhibition at Concordia’s 4TH SPACE, biolab member Jacqui Beaumont facilitated the workshop “Interspecies Meditations for Hybrid Futures” on July 23rd, 1–4pm. “Interspecies Meditations for Hybrid Futures” attempts to engage with the critical disposition of animalian and botanical interactions. When personal connections are made to the natural world,…
BoochFest MTL—an international kombucha festival taking place in the IGA Stadium in Jarry Park between August 23-25—invited a team of artists, designers, and researchers from the biolab to create an installation for the event. The team is culturing multiple large-scale SCOBY cellulose pools in both the Speculative Life Biolab and in BricoBio, a DIY bio…
iGEM is an international synthetic biology competition directed towards bringing new minds into the practicing world of genetic engineering. Every year, teams come up with projects that tackle real world problems using synthetic biology. The research process takes place primarily over the summer and culminates in fall at the annual jamboree. Biolab member Jacqueline Beaumont…
Over the summer, Devon McKellar will be leading research in the Speculative Life Biolab as part of the Waterways Biodiversity Group. This project documents and studies soil microbes and plants near the Saint Paul lock on the Lachine Canal. As a part of this project, Devon will be collecting two samples near the base of…
