Badly Behaved Biotech-Feminist Subversions
https://www.neme.org/projects/badly-behaved-biotech
Biotechnologies are often marketed using moralised or sanitised terms, such as the concept of laboratory-grown “clean meat.” This so-called clean meat refers to animal cells and tissues artificially cultivated in sterile lab environments using antibiotic-laden solutions. Promoted as eco-friendly and cruelty-free alternatives to traditional meat production, these products claim to address the harmful environmental and ethical impacts of industrial farming. However, such marketing strategies often obscure the materials and methods involved, presenting overly simplistic solutions to complex issues. This phenomenon, which could be called “tech-washing,” promotes the seemingly altruistic development of new technologies while sidestepping critical questions about power dynamics and biopolitics. Feminist artistic interventions can challenge this narrative, by critiquing exploitative practices and control mechanisms while imagining alternative uses of technology that empower women and marginalised communities.
In this talk, artist and researcher WhiteFeather Hunter shares insights into her transdisciplinary research-creation practice, where art, science, and technology converge. Hunter offers a distinctive perspective on bioart, integrating feminist theory and craft into scientific inquiry. She will discuss provocative projects that address how bodies are utilised—or excluded—in tissue engineering and reproductive technologies. One such project involves using her own menstrual serum to cultivate “unclean meat,” pushing back against sanitised narratives. Her recent collaboration, Sentient Clit: The Pussification of Biotech, explores 3D-bioprinted clitorises embedded with menstrual stem cells, transformed into neuronal cell types. This work unpacks notions of “synthetic sentience” and prompts ethical discussions around intelligence and pleasure in lab-created entities.
These projects stem from Hunter’s doctoral research, The Witch in the Lab Coat, which critiques bioscience cultures through a technofeminist lens. By sharing her experiences and methodologies, Hunter will invite the audience to critically examine the ethical and cultural implications of biotechnological advancements. Her work demonstrates how feminist art can challenge, reimagine, and expand scientific paradigms, fostering deeper discussions at the intersections of art, science, and society. Biotech itself is flipped on its head, behaving “badly” by defying norms, disrupting power structures, and embracing taboo materials to radically reimagine its possibilities. This artist talk provides a platform for exploring the complexities of contemporary bioart practices and their broader societal impact.
WhiteFeather Hunter: Badly Behaved Biotech-Feminist Subversions
Hosted by YouTube on
youtu.be/M0BiDw7OvqI.
Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter is a Canadian artist and researcher, internationally recognised for her provocative work in Biological Art. She holds a PhD from SymbioticA at The University of Western Australia and an MFA in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University. Her research focuses on technofeminist critiques of scientific biocultures, including innovative use of “taboo” materials like menstrual serum and stem cells in tissue engineering. Hunter’s recent collaboration, Sentient Clit—The Pussification of Biotech, explores 3D-bioprinted clitorises embedded with neuronal cells. Her work has been exhibited and published across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia, and she collaborates with leading biolabs, including at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine and DZNE German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases. Currently, she is artist-in-residence at Artengine and visiting researcher at University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Hunter has recently delivered keynotes for University College Cork’s Future Humanities Institute, and the University of Calgary’s ARTS Society.
