This June 2026, Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter joins Art/In Forum as our inaugural Knowledge Partner in artistic intelligence, as well as our first research-group-in-residence.
“We’re delighted to be collaborating with WhiteFeather, who is an accomplished and highly-regarded artist and scientist, in Canada and around the world,” says Helen Yung, Chief Artistic Officer of the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, representing Art/In Forum’s Founding Partners.
WhiteFeather is the recipient of a SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant to examine bioart in Canada as a complex, evolving field situated at the intersection of contemporary art, biological sciences, and critical theory.
In this research, WhiteFeather and her research group will be mapping bioart practitioners, laboratories, residency programs, and institutional networks across Canada, while analyzing how bioart intersects with biotechnology, microbiology, biofabrication, and ecological practices. This work will include identifying gaps, barriers, and inequities in access to resources and infrastructure, as well as examining the ethical, political, and cultural dimensions of working with living systems. In doing so, WhiteFeather will situate Canadian bioart practices within broader international contexts.
Through partnership with Art/In Forum, BioArt in Canada hopes to create new opportunities for artists, researchers, and organizations working at the intersections of art, science, and technology to find one another, to share knowledge and strengthen our networks that support this work across Canada.
“BioArt in Canada is about making a vibrant field more visible, here at home,” explains WhiteFeather. “BioArt emerges through collaborative action, between living systems, but also through disciplines, institutions, and communities. Art/In Forum offers a unique space for those conversations to grow, and I look forward to learning alongside others as we map the field together.”
Art/In Forum is supporting the BioArt in Canada research group with a virtual residency, which includes technical support for data collection and data visualization, as well as web hosting for a branded microsite.
As an Art/In Knowledge Partner, BioArt in Canada will contribute content and programming for the Art/In Forum community. Look forward to upcoming virtual gatherings on bioart with Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter and colleagues.
Subscribers to Art/In Digest (e-newsletter) may now opt for exclusive updates from BioArt in Canada in addition to the regular newsletter.
Short Bio
Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter is an internationally-recognized Canadian artist and researcher, and SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts & Technology.
She holds a PhD through SymbioticA International Centre of Excellence in Biological Art, The University of Western Australia, and an MFA in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University, Montréal. Her doctoral thesis, The Witch in the Lab Coat (short title) was a TechnoFeminist negotiation of science biocultures by using ‘taboo’ reproductive body fluids such as menstrual blood and stem cells in novel tissue engineering protocols; this included investigating magic and witchcraft as performed resistance to medicalized control over women’s bodies.
Full bio available at cMAS.
Critical Media Art Studio
cMAS is a feminist research-creation studio formed by a community of artists, researchers, and scholars working at the intersections of art, science, and technology.
“Together, we engage deeply with history, theory, and practice to examine how old and emerging technologies shape cultural narratives, artistic forms, and embodied experiences. Our work is grounded in feminist theories, decolonial perspectives, and research-creation methodologies that value collaboration, situated knowledge, and experimentation as modes of inquiry.
The projects we create investigate the possibilities and implications of working across disciplines. These projects take many forms, including exhibitions, scholarly publications, public performances, experimental videos, generative artworks, digital graphics, printed zines, artists’ books, and other multimodal formats.”
cMAS is directed by Dr. Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda and shares space with Dr. Kate Hennessy’s Making Culture Lab in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus. CMAS is located on the unceded territories of the Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm), and Qayqayt First Nations.
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