Cell Track: Mapping the Appropriation of Life Materials

Cell Track is a flexible-scale wall installation and accompanying web site examining the privatization and patenting of human, animal, and plant genomes within the context of a history of eugenics. It has been exhibited alone and in combination with other subRosa projects, sometimes with site-specific content modifications. 

Cell Track draws attention to the increasing separation between the bodies that produce stem cells—and other genetic material—and the medical and pharmaceutical products derived from them.

Maternal body cells and tissues—such as eggs, placentas, fetuses, and umbilical cord blood—have become valuable “raw materials” extracted and accumulated for emerging bio-tech industries.  This has opened new pathways for corporate science to profit from the manipulation and control of life via the privatization of DNA sequences, engineered genes, stem cell lines, transgenic organisms, and the like. Cell Track gives a historic overview of the privatization of biology while also raising the the possibility of activist, feminist-inspired experimental research and labs accessible to amateurs, artists, independent scientists, and non-profit researchers conducting research and sharing knowledge for the public good.

  • Bio-Difference: The Political Ecology, Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Univ. of Western Australia, Sept. 12–Oct. 3, 2004
  • YOUGenics3, curated by Ryan Griffis, Betty Rymer Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 4–Feb. 5, 2004
  • Deliciously Disposable Earth, curated by Carolina Loyola-Garcia, Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, Jan. 17–Feb 22, 2008 (catalog)
  • Soft Power. Art and Technologies in the Biopolitical Age, curated by Maria Ptqk. Amarika Project at Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Fall, 2009
  • BPLTC I: Cellular Control, curated by Eliane Ellbogen, Eastern Bloc, Montreal, Sept. 24–Oct. 14,  2015
  • Eugenic History of Southern Agriculture with subRosa and curated by Atlanta Anti-University at Murmur Gallery, Sept 12-13, 2016 

This project has its own web site, and you can download the Cultures of Eugenics booklet that accompanies it.

 

Can You See Us Now? ¿Ya Nos Pueden Ver?

This major, year-long subRosa project for The Interventionists, mapped the intersections of women’s material and affective labor in cultures of production in North Adams, MA, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and investigated the similarities and differences of economic, cultural and every-day life effects of the outsourcing of labor and globalization on these towns and on their local female labor force. Large, aerial wall maps of North Adams and Ciudad Juárez featured oversized map pins denoting “points of view,” and flanked a “forensic floor” that concealed objects, texts, and clues beneath loose boards. Visitors were encouraged to discover connections between the aerial maps, the contents beneath the floor, and a third printed “road map” distributed in the space. Also displayed were five posters by contemporary Mexican artists, expressing concern and outrage about the continuing murder and disappearance of women in Ciudad Juárez.*

The “Clothing Tag Map,” a separate part of this project—displayed in the foyer of the Museum—allowed visitors to cut the tags off their clothing and pin them to a Dymaxion world map, according to the location where each garment was manufactured. Thus visitors actively explored, and demonstrated their own participation and complicity in globalized labor conditions.

  • The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere, curated by Nato Thompson, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, May 2004–March 2005 (catalog, link).
  • Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion [clothing tag map only], curated by Diane Barber, Diverse Works, Houston, TX, April 1–May 28, 2005.

* Can You See Us Now has its own web site.