Tentacular Festival. Christina Agapakis

What does evolution look like in the age of biotechnology? Artist, writer and synthetic biologist Christina Agapakis (US) designs and prototypes bioengineered microbes in her day job as creative director of Ginkgo Bioworks. Her work investigates the potentialities and pitfalls of designing living things, often through the lens of a techno-feminist perspective, such as in the work Resurrecting the Sublime, a collaboration with Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and Sissel Tolaas where the three artists use genetic engineering to resurrect the smell of extinct flowers. Far from techno-solutionist, the work underscores the profound sense of loss experienced through an artificial encounter with something that has been destroyed and can never be fully reclaimed.

Christina Agapakis is a synthetic biologist, writer, and artist and is the creative director of Ginkgo Bioworks, a biological design company based in Boston. Her work brings together biologists, engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore the future of biotechnology, from reviving extinct flowers to tasting human cheese.