ELSI Friday Forum: Material (Mis)Identities: Art, Genes and Ethics

• Lucy Kim, MFA, Artist, Associate Professor in Art and Painting, Boston University
• Paul Vanouse, MFA, Artist, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Director of Coalesce Center for Biological Art, University of Buffalo
• Moderated by Rachel Adams, PhD, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

How can genetically-incorporated art examine, highlight, and challenge existing social constructs such as the formation of racial identity? This ELSI Friday Forum will explore this question, focusing on the intersection between art and genetics. Panelist, Lucy Kim, Associate Professor in Art and Painting, will discuss a unique process she created to use melanin from genetically-modified bacteria to develop images. This process of screen printing with melanin raises questions about how race is ascribed, its meaning, and connection to something as arbitrary as pigment. Panelist, Paul Vanouse, Professor of Art, will discuss his interactive biomedia installation in which extracted DNA samples “run” through gel electrophoresis to examine the racial identity of his multi-racial family’s Jamaican descent. Moderated by Rachel Adams, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, join us as we discuss the intersection between art and genetics.