The Arts & Genomics Centre

Anne Kienhuis is the Scientific Manager of The Arts & Genomics Centre (TAGC), a research institute at Leiden University, The Netherlands. The Centre aims to create a platform for both scientists and artists explore art science relations.

Anne told us her experiences in the art&science projects within TAGC: the VivoArts: Art and Biology Studio – Wet Lab Practices and Bio-Art Pedagogy by Adam Zaretsky and the Food, Art and Science symposium.

The Vivo Course aim was to develop critical thought, raise ethical issues and initiate experimentation in cross-disciplinary art practices. Adam Zaretsky wanted to work in the lab and use laboratory animals. He studied the Netherlands' restrictions on animal experimentation and decided to use avian or bird embryos before the day 17, once they are not consider animals until then. The students were allowed to use as many eggs as they wanted and to manipulate them as they wished. These experiments allowed students to explore their own ethical boundaries, how far they wanted to go and how they wanted to kill the embryos until day 17. This project raised some questions: What should we sacrifice? How much we project our suffering on the ideas we have on animal suffering? Science contributes to art, but what's the arts contribution to science?

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The Food, Art and Science symposium joined scientists working in lab grown meat such as Prof. Henk Haagsman, an ethicist – Dr. Cor van der Weele, a philosopher Dr. Michiel Korthals, and several artists. SymbioticA artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr are the first people to actually cook and eat lab-grown meat. In fact, their research is serving as base for scientific studies in the field. Another artist designed menus under the idea that we should eat and enjoy the entire animal, from snout to tail. Anne called attention to some inherent questions on these debates: What is more acceptable to kill animals for meet or to kill cells for meet? Are artists obliged to take moral responsibilities to their work? Should scientists allow artists in their labs?