Cyanosymbionts (2018) is a series of images, garments, prosthetics, and art objects for installation and short film that speculates on potential symbiosis of cyanobacteria with humans and other multi-species entanglements during this time on our changing planet. This project is based on research of other species that are symbiotic with different strains of cyanobacteria and green alga - such as green sea slugs, spotted salamander embryos, sloths, the roots of cycads, and others. This project is also inspired by recent research done around genetically engineering photosynthetic bacteria to exist in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells. [1] Cyanosymbionts considers our relationship to our other species and our increasingly bio-technological landscape, gene-editing, synthetic biology, and bioethics.

References:

[1] Agapakis, Christina M., et al. “Towards a Synthetic Chloroplast.” PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 4, 2011, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018877.

[2] “Beautiful Monsters: Terra in the Cyanocene.” Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, Dorian Sagan, edited by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing et al., University of Minnesota Press, 2017.