When art, design and science research meet, exciting things happen. This is the thinking behind the inaugural Critical Connections Symposium and Exhibition on Saturday, March 25 at QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove.
As the momentum to work, learn, and research beyond a disciplinary context is reaching pristine heights, Critical Connections: Art, Design and STEM will feature a cross-disciplinary group of national and international speakers on the challenges and opportunities for inter and trans-disciplinary practices across science, the creative industries such as arts, and design.
Dr Svenja Kratz, who received her PhD from QUT in 2013 and holds a faculty position at the University of Tasmania and Professor Dietmar W Hutmacher, who heads QUT’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine, have collaborated for more than three years in the space where creative industries meets regenerative medicine.
The symposium and exhibition are a collaboration by QUT’s The Cube, the Creative Industries Faculty, the Australian Research Centre in Additive Biomanufacturing and the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation, with the University of Tasmania Creative Exchange Institute.
The symposium’s speakers will canvas the themes of research; learning and teaching, ethics, and cultural engagement. Panelists will come from QUT, Griffith University, University of Tasmania, Science Gallery Melbourne, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Academies, SymbioticA, and Ars Electronica.
The exhibition, Prototypes for Immortality: Towards A Distributed and Evolving Self – engages with the concept of immortality through technological intervention.
Dr Svenja Kratz, who moderates the research panel, said the exhibition draws on research from QUT’s Centre of Regenerative Medicine to incorporate tissue engineering techniques and new approaches to additive bio-manufacturing, or the use of 3D printing technologies, to develop artworks that highlight the potential of 21st century biomedical sciences and the agency of living biomaterials.
“This collection artworks and creative prototypes, developed in collaboration with the Centre of Regenerative Medicine, aims to encourage active dialogue between the different stakeholders,” Dr Kratz said.
“It invites viewers to consider in general the impact of biomedical research and more specifically some of the creative applications of the Centre's research and ponder the possibilities, and philosophical implications of living engineered systems and mergers of artificial life and biotechnology.”
The symposium is staged at Z9, The Block, QUT Creative Industries Precinct, Kelvin Grove and runs from 9.15am to 4.45pm on Saturday, March 25. The exhibition is from 5 to 7pm with a floor talk from 5.30-6pm.
The events are supported by QUT, the Brisbane City Council, the Queensland Government, and the University of Tasmania.
