From March 2nd until 23rd, 2022, an exhibition of the »Fermenting Futures« group will take place at the Künstlerhaus in Vienna. In it, British artist Anna Dumitriu and her compatriot Alex May explore the significance of yeast from cultural, scientific, ethical, and aesthetic perspectives. The exhibition features a new series of sculptures, installations and textile works that address interrelationships between humans, yeast, and culture over millennia, with a focus on new directions in synthetic biology.
For this purpose, the OeAI is making available the recent analysis results of a charred bread-like object from the study collection of the Institute of Prehistory and Historical Archaeology (University of Vienna). These were generated as part of the ERC project PLANTCULT.
Since ancient times, yeast has been an essential component of human life, helping to shape human cultural evolution. It is possible that the ability of a yeast to ferment sugar into alcohol led to the development of the first human settlements, as people needed to stay close to their fields to cultivate them in order to produce beer. Yeast is now the focus of synthetic biology research for disciplines as diverse as food production, beer and wine making, vaccine production, plastics production and carbon sequestration.
The panel discussion »Art & Science Talk« on March 3rd at 6:00 pm will feature archaeobotanist Andreas G. Heiss (OeAI), biotechnologist Diethard Mattanovich (BOKU, Vienna) and media theroetician Ingeborg Reichle (Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research, Potsdam) as well as the two artists.