FEMeeting Sisterlabs Beyond Borders

New College's NewONE, ArtSci Salon and n-D::StudioLab present:

FEMeeting Sisterlabs Beyond Borders

March 21, 27, 28, April 1 - various locations in Toronto

**Monday, March 25 event has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 27***

A series of public dialogues, workshops, and performances addressing interdisciplinary and decolonial approaches at the intersection between art, science, and technology

Featuring Artists:

Cecillia Ocharan Vilca — Peruvian transartist, feminist chola techno-witch, and language activist

Praba Pilar — diasporic Colombian interdisciplinary artist disrupting the overwhelmingly passive participation in the contemporary cult of the techno-logic

Nathalie Dubois — bioartist and plant science researcher based in Montreal, engaging in feminist acts of reconciliation with her non/human components

This program is the culmination of a term-long pedagogical effort to foster, connect, and consolidate interdisciplinary dialogues across the 5 courses at the NewONE Program (New College, University of Toronto). It is also part of a short-term mobile residency, based on the sustainable principles of sharing knowledge and resources, and the goal to foster interdisciplinary dialogues and new pedagogy across 4 institutions in Canada and in the US. Finally, the initiative is part of the FEMeeting SisterLabs series designed to support and lead to the FEMeeting, a women and women-identified conference taking place on June 23-29 2024 at the University of Windsor.

Event Program:

SisterLab #1

March 21, 1:00-3:00 pm

William Doo Auditorium - 45 Willcocks Street

Panel Discussion Interdisciplinary and decolonial practices in art, science and technology

Panelists:

> Cecilia Vilca Ocharan Transartist, Lima, Perú

> Praba Pilar, Interdisciplinary Artist, US/Colombia

> Nathalie Dubois-Calero, Bioartist and Plant Scientist, Montreal

Workshop #1 Visceral Data. A DIY/DIWO/DIT epigenetics workshop of Forensic Love project

March 27, 3:00-6:00 pm 

The Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 222 College Street, Room 230

By Cecilia Vilca Ocharan

Event description: In this workshop, participants will extract their "visceral data," that is, data as undervalued sensitive knowledge: history and personal (internal/external) territory, instinct, non-linear times, and the different scales we inhabit. Visceral data is the chronicle of our bodies and is the raw material of the bio-antidote (s) for romantic love. This is obtained from contrasting romantic love sayings with participants' medical analysis.

Registration closed

Workshop #2 Mater Virus - Ontological Workshop-Game for Post-Pandemic Reconciliation

March 28, 4:00-7:00 pm

William Doo Auditorium - 45 Willcocks Street

By: Cecilia Vilca Ocharan and Nathalie Dubois-Calero

Description: Mater Virus (Mother virus) is an ontological workshop-game where the public finds their more intimate specificities - baldness, communication ability, and disease susceptibilities - what makes us unique is being an inheritance from viruses at a different time in our history. Participants will not only learn about sequencing, SNPs, retroviruses, and evolution, but they will also “be '' viruses and be conscious that our body is also territory and identity. They will connect to the performativity of biology. The information is brought to bodies to generate reflection through play, acquiring knowledge, and scientific awareness.

Registration Closed

SisterLab #2 Artist Talks and performances

April 1, 6:00-8:30 pm

The Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 222 College Street, Room 230

> Cecilia Vilca Ocharan

> Praba Pilar

> BacterHuman. A performance and talk by Nathalie Dubois Calero

About the artists:

Cecilia Vilca Ocharan is a Peruvian media artist whose artistic work at the intersection of art and science applies a decolonial lens to gender, society, and nature by connecting ancient technologies with new ones. Her main goal and poetic is to encourage reflection through revelation using technology. Her projects are born from her personal crusades; therefore, they are micropolitical flesh.

Praba Pilar is a diasporic Colombian interdisciplinary artist. The two artists will come to Toronto with their individual practices and their present collaboration on the “Techno Tamaladas” project, which draws on the practice & knowledge of cultivating corn/maíz across the Americas to sustain life. In recognizing the Indigenous technology of nixtamalization as a technology of life, the project reimagines technological futurity.

Nathalie Dubois-Calero is a "fully self-accepted BacterVirHuman", a bioartist and plant science researcher based in Montreal. her works are feminist acts of reconciliation with her non (or too much?) human components. She uses microbes as her main medium in workshops, performances, videos, and object-making. Her recent project, BacterHuman, focuses on the cutaneous microbiota (all the microorganisms living on and inside the skin) and the multifaceted relationships we have with it.

This initiative has been possible thanks to the support of New College and is a collaboration with the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and York University’s Computational Arts Program. On Apr 2, the artists will travel to engage with two partner programs: the Coalesce Lab at the University at Buffalo and the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy.