SymbioticA petition

SymbioticA, a keystone organization in the eco-system of the international art and science community, is under threat of imminent closure.

We, the undersigned without hesitation, recommend that the University of Western Australia continue its support for SymbioticA. 

Founded in 2000, by Oron Catts, Miranda Grounds, and Stuart Bunt, SymbioticA is a biological art research center at The University of Western Australia. Over the last 22 years, led by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, SymbioticA has become the world’s pioneer  in art/science education, research and design. SymbioticA is an international leader in the art and science field having won the inaugural Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier’s Science Award (2008) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. SymbioticA’s activities have been covered by media and research journals including the NY Times, Washington Post, Wired, New Scientist, Time, Newsweek, Art in America, Nature, Science, and others. Creative works from SymbioticA Directors Catts and Zurr (aka Tissue Culture and Art/TC&A) have been exhibited at MoMA NY, Pompidou Center, Mori art Museum, NGV, GoMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Ars Electronica, National Art Museum of China and more.

Since the inception of SymbioticA in 2000, hundreds of artists and researchers have benefited from life altering residencies and post-secondary degrees at SymbioticA. A great many others have benefited from the exhibitions, workshops, and publications authored by SymbioticA. As well, dozens of art/science research facilities around the world are directly informed by SymbioticA’s example. The international art/science community is a vibrant field of transdisciplinary practice across the arts, sciences and humanities, whose robustness is, to an enormous extent, one pioneered and cultivated by SymbioticA and its alumni of artists, curators and scholars. It is vital that this work continue.

In an increasingly uncertain world, SymbioticA has maintained its function as an essential centre of excellence, facilitating the highest calibre of practice in the arts and life sciences that continue to enquire into the nature of contemporary challenges.  It does so with a reach and impact that we are all evidence of, via the numerous activities, collaborations, and manifold trajectories we represent.

#savesymbioticA

For more information about SymbioticA:  https://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/