1,000 Days

A gathering and conversation featuring Dr. Drew Endy, Hirokazu Kosaka, Dr. Yewande Pearse and Dr. Jennifer Willet

About 1000 Days

On Thursday, June 2, 2022, at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Fathomers presented 1,000 Days, a gathering and conversation in anticipation of our PST 2024 exhibition, Emergence: A Genealogy.

1,000 Days was inspired by Stanford synthetic biologist Dr. Drew Endy’s provocation that a world which includes fully synthetic living cells is already within 1,000 days’ reach. Dr. Endy joined a conversation about biological futures, intersections of synthetic biology and creative practice, and dynamics of collaboration moderated by Dr. Yewande Pearse, a neuroscientist and science communicator, with bio artist and curator Dr. Jennifer Willet of the University of Windsor. The program began with a traditional Kyudo ceremony performed by Japanese American Cultural and Community Center master artist-in-residence Hirokazu Kosaka.

Dr. Drew Endy is a member of the bioengineering faculty at Stanford University and BioBricks Foundation president. His research teams pioneered amplifying genetic logic, rewritable DNA data storage, reliably-reusable standard biological parts, and genome refactoring. Drew helped launch the new undergraduate majors in bioengineering at both MIT and Stanford; he also co-founded the iGEM competition, a global genetic engineering “olympics'' now engaging over 6,000 students annually. In 2013, the White House recognized Drew for his work on open-source biotechnology, and more recently, he received an honorary doctorate from the Technische Universiteit Delft. Drew has served on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the Committee on Science, Technology & Law; he currently serves on the World Health Organization’s Smallpox Advisory Committee. Esquire magazine recognized Drew as one of the seventy-five most influential people of the twenty-first century.

Hirokazu Kosaka is an ordained Shingon Buddhist priest, a master of the art of Japanese archery, as well as the Master Artist in Residence of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. After graduating from the Chouinard Art Institute (CalArts) in 1970, he continued to study in the fields of esoteric Buddhist art. Born in Wakayama, Japan, in 1948, Hirokazu has been actively advocating Japanese culture and art at JACCC since 1983.

Dr. Yewande Pearse is a trained neuroscientist, stem cell biologist and science communicator who has dedicated over ten years of research to understanding rare genetic brain disorders at King’s College London, The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA. She is currently working in the world of biotech and is also the host of the podcast 'Inside Biotech' presented by Biotech Connection Los Angeles. Her communication work exists at the intersection of science and culture, where she strives to make science accessible for all. She produced and hosted Sound Science on Dublab Radio and has collaborated with Headspace, Natural History Museum, Female Collective, SEED, Science Gallery Detroit, NAVEL, Massive Science, TEDMED, and more.

Dr. Jennifer Willet is the Director of INCUBATOR Art Lab and a Canada Research Chair in Art, Science and Ecology at the University of Windsor. In 2017, Willet was inducted into the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2009, she completed her Ph.D. in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Concordia University and opened INCUBATOR, the first biological art lab in Canada. Jennifer is an internationally recognized artist and curator in the emerging field of BioArt. Her research resides at the intersection of art and science, and explores notions of representation, the body, ecologies, and interspecies interrelations in the biotechnological field. She engages in performance, installation, photography and sculpture based artistic practices, community arts and social practice, and philosophy of science, media studies, science and technology studies, combined with protocols and life forms from the biological sciences.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION

About Emergence: A Genealogy

Emergence: A Genealogy is a global bioart survey that — in its commingling of synthetic biology with design, sculpture, social practice, performance, and artist-led activism — probes changing definitions of what is natural, conscious, and essential to human existence.

Supported by Pacific Standard Time, Fathomers is one of 45 cultural, educational, and scientific institutions throughout Southern California to receive support from the Getty for their projects — which will result in dozens of simultaneous exhibitions and programs focused on the intertwined histories of art and science — to take place in fall 2024.

Fathomers will present Emergence: A Genealogy at the Japanese American Community & Cultural Center.

About Pacific Standard Time

Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented series of collaborations among institutions across Southern California. In each, organizations simultaneously present research-based exhibitions and programs that explore and illuminate a significant theme in the region’s cultural history.

In Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, more than 60 cultural institutions joined forces between October 2011 and March 2012 and rewrote the history of the birth and impact of the L.A. art scene. In Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, presented from September 2017 through January 2018, more than 70 institutions collaborated on a paradigm-shifting examination of Latin American and Latinx art, seen together as a hemispheric continuum.

Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty Foundation.

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For project actions and updates on Emergence: A Genealogy, follow along here.

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