Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures (2019-2020) originated at NC State University, where it was led by the the NC State University Libraries and the Genetic Engineering and Society Center. The exhibition was held at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, the physical and digital display spaces of the NCSU Libraries, and the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park. 

 
Programming included a weekend symposium with artist panels and respondents, including scientists, students, community members, and humanities scholars, discussing individual artworks to open the multisite show. The major exhibition was preceded by a pop-up Field Trial at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) in Raleigh, NC in 2017 and an accompanying workshop-symposium which attracted more than 40 experts, including artists, scientists, and humanists.

Catalog

A full-color, 144-page, printed catalog of the exhibition is available through UNC Press, which was a finalist for the Dedalus Foundation Exhibition Catalogue Award.

Fred Gould

Fred Gould, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Agriculture, is Co-Director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center of North Carolina State University and Director of the NSF-sponsored, interdisciplinary, graduate training program on Agricultural Biotechnology. Dr. Gould and his colleagues have studied the field ecology of the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, that vectors dengue virus. They have also developed a range of mathematical models to assess current gene drive systems and to conceptualize novel gene drive mechanisms. Along with Molly Renda, he co-directed Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures at NC State. In 2011, Dr. Gould was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and has served on several National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) committees studying the environmental and health effects of the commercialization of genetically engineered crops.

Molly Renda

Molly Renda has served as exhibits program librarian at the NC State University Libraries since 2011, and with Fred Gould is co-director of the Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures exhibition. For the Libraries she develops, designs, and produces exhibitions that leverage the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center resources, as well as showcase faculty and student research and university history. Her background in painting and printmaking has informed a thirty-year career in graphic design. Renda holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts where she studied with Bob Blackburn and Dale Henry, and later worked at Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop. She served as executive editor for design and production for DoubleTake magazine (1994–99), published by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Her book and publication design have been recognized by Communication Graphics, Graphis, the AIGA 50 Books, 50 Covers exhibition, and the Association of American University Presses.

Roger Manley

Roger Manley, director of NC State University’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design , is a photographer, folklorist, filmmaker, curator and writer. He has curated exhibitions for more than forty other institutions, including some of the first exhibitions of outsider art in the South and three blockbuster exhibitions for the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, beginning with its inaugural show, Tree of Life. He has authored a number of award-winning books, catalogues, videos and films, and has produced exhibitions of his own photographs of Australian Aboriginals, Hispanic farmworkers, Palestinian villagers, Gullah Sea Islanders, Navajos, Arctic gold miners, and self-taught artists. His feature-length documentary, MANA—beyond belief, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and at NYC’s Lincoln Center, and was an Official Selection at SXSW and an Opening Night Feature at both San Francisco DocFest and the Full Frame festival. He founded the biennial META Conferences at Black Mountain which, over the past three decades, have brought together hundreds of artists, scientists and other creative individuals from all over the world for regular collaborative exchanges at the site of the former Black Mountain College.
Hannah Rogers

Hannah Star Rogers

Hannah Star Rogers received her Ph.D. at Cornell University on the intersection of art and science and her MFA in poetry from Columbia University. She has writing taught at Columbia University, Strathclyde University, and the University of Virginia. Her scholarly publications have appeared in Configurations, Leonardo, Photomediations, and A New Synthesis. She curated Making Science Visible: The Photography of Berenice Abbott at the Fralin Museum of Art, which received an exhibits prize from the British Society for the History of Science and resulted in an invited lecture at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. She is past Director of Research and Collaboration for Arizona State University’s Emerge: Artists and Scientists Redesign the Future 2016 and served as Guest Bioart Curator for 2017. She is currently a Visiting Scholar in STIS at the University of Edinburgh, where she is completing her forthcoming book Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge.

Todd Kuiken

Todd Kuiken explores the scientific and technological frontier, stimulating discovery and bringing new tools to bear on public policy challenges that emerge as science advances. He is a renowned expert on DIY biology and biohacking cultures. Kuiken served on the Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology team at NC State since the project’s inception and led an initiative to incorporate artworks from the exhibition into school curricula. Prior to joining the faculty of NC State University, he spent eight years at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Science and Technology Innovation Program where he led the Synthetic Biology Project along with other emerging technology related projects, such as the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. He has been appointed to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ad-Hoc Technical Expert Group on Synthetic Biology and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety’s Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Risk Assessment. He plays an active role in the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition as a long-time judge and by serving as the co-chair of its sustainable development goals program and as the former co-chair of the human practices program.

Patti Mulligan

Patti Mulligan is the Communications Director with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at NC State. In her role, Patti’s responsibilities include management of the website, newsletters, reports, fundraising, graphics, videos, and podcast, and plays an integral role in the planning and execution of Center projects. Prior to joining GES, Patti was the Operations Director for the NC Democratic Party’s 2016 Clinton coordinated campaign and worked for many years with the United Way of the Greater Triangle as the Director of eGiving. In 2020, she was awarded the NC State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, the university’s most prestigious honor bestowed upon non-faculty employees.

Elizabeth A. Pitts

Elizabeth A. Pitts is an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Composition, Literacy, Pedagogy, and Rhetoric program. She received her PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University with a minor in Genetic Engineering and Society, and she also holds a BA and MA in English from Georgetown University. Elizabeth’s research blends rhetorical theory, organizational studies, and science studies to examine how technologies influence the nature of professional work and professional identity. As part of the Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology exhibition team, she served in an advisory capacity and was a respondent for the exhibition symposium.