Exhibiting Artists

Yoko Shimizu

Curated by

Elena Soterakis

About

Vibrant Matter is a solo exhibition by Japanese bio-artist and researcher Yoko Shimizu that features a selection of the artist's work exploring the dynamism, agency, and expressive potential of living systems. Working with plants, microbial organisms, and natural phenomena as subject matter, material, and artistic collaborators, Shimizu's work reveals the invisible intra-acting forces that animate processes of creation, adaptation, growth, and transformation in all organic matter. In both her scientific research and artistic practice, Shimizu's work asks: How do we as humans shift our relationship with nature from one of domination and control to one of symbiosis and collaboration? How do we reconcile our own conception of ourselves as autonomous subjects with the reality of our material entanglement with non-human agents like plants and microbes? In her work, Shimizu develops novel techniques and materials that manifest the infinite wisdom of nature and its self-determined creative potential.

Yoko Shimizu (Japanese, born 1977) is an Austrian-based bio-artist and researcher. Vibrant Matter is her largest solo exhibition in the United States to date and is informed by over a decade's worth of Shimizu's artistic research exploring the intersection of biological systems and emergent technology.

Special Thanks

Julia Kaganskiy, NARS Foundation, Genspace, Brooklyn Glass, SUNY Downstate, Economic Development Corporation, and BioBAT Inc.