Curators in Conversation
Excerpts from Fathomers’ first public program for Emergence: A Genealogy
Moderated by neuroscientist and science communicator Dr. Yewande Pearse, the conversation with the Emergence: A Genealogy curatorial team Annie Fischer, Stacy Switzer and Antajuan Scott offers an introduction to the world of Emergence, a project about art, biology, bodies and futures slated to open in 2024 as part of Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. The edited recording shares highlights from the conversation, including Emergence origins and possibilities, synthetic biology as a rising global experience and the waning gap between real-life science and science fiction.
This program was presented over Zoom on November 18, 2021, and supported by the Getty Foundation through its Pacific Standard Time initiative.
ABOUT DR. YEWANDE PEARSE
Dr. Yewande Pearse is a neuroscientist and science communicator. She gained her Ph.D. from King’s College London and is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA. Dr. Pearse hosts a monthly radio show called Sound Science on Los Angeles's legendary Dublab radio and is the host of Inside Biotech, a podcast from Biotech Connection Los Angeles. As an advocate for science accessibility, Yewande has spoken at various events at the intersection of science and culture, hosted and moderated 'First Fridays Connected 2021' presented by The Natural History Museum, Los Angeles and has appeared as a guest expert in videos for the meditation app Headspace, and written for TEDMED and Massive Science.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Annie Fischer is an independent writer, editor, and curator who co-founded Fathomers, a creative research institute in Los Angeles, where she directed research and communication until 2021. She has worked as a Village Voice columnist, a journalist, and an educator; published short stories in multiple literary magazines; and served as a Fulbright Fellow to Budapest, where she researched the life of a famous Hungarian pianist named Annie Fischer. With Stacy Switzer, she co-edited Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015. She holds an MFA in creative writing and lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
Antajuan Scott is a Detroit-based culture worker and curator. Currently, Antajuan serves as the Head of Programming for Science Gallery Detroit, an initiative of the Science Gallery International network and Michigan State University.
At Science Gallery Detroit, Antajuan is responsible for co-managing its open call process for exhibitions and programs, as well as developing collaborations with researchers, artists, and organizations. Curatorial projects and collaborations undertaken include SmellScape Detroit with artist Sissel Tolaas and MSU Broad Museum; commissions by artist Laura D. Gibson and Indigenious collective the Aadizookaan; and co-curation of The Intersection, an art-science program series with Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Prior to his role with Science Gallery Detroit, Antajuan served as Sciences Program Manager at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.
Stacy Switzer is curator and executive director of Fathomers, and served as artistic director of Grand Arts from 2004 to 2015. Her current projects in development with the Fathomers team include Michael Jones McKean’s Twelve Earths and Ni’Ja Whitson’s The Unarrival Experiments. At Grand Arts, Switzer curated dozens of major solo projects by artists including Sanford Biggers, William Pope.L, Mariah Robertson, and Tavares Strachan. In 2002, Switzer curated the first exhibition in the United States to include work by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr’s Tissue Culture and Art Project. Additional bioartists Switzer has worked with include Critical Art Ensemble and Paul Vanouse (Cult of the New Eve, Grand Arts, 2004); Heather Dewey Hagborg (Field Station: Spirit Molecule, 2019); Faith Wilding and subRosa (Salina Art Center, 2002); Sissel Tolaas (Grand Arts, 2007 and 2012); and Phil Ross (MycoCosmos, Fathomers, 2017). She has been a visiting lecturer, critic and consultant for Creative Capital, Sotheby's Institute, the Jerome Foundation, and the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, among others. With Annie Fischer, Switzer is co-editor of Problems and Provocations: Grand Arts 1995-2015.
ABOUT EMERGENCE
Emergence: A Genealogy is a global bioart survey that — in its commingling of synthetic biology with design, sculpture, social practice, performance, and artist-led activism — probes changing definitions of what is natural, conscious, and essential to human existence.
Supported by Pacific Standard Time, Fathomers is one of 45 cultural, educational, and scientific institutions throughout Southern California to receive support from the Getty for their projects — which will result in dozens of simultaneous exhibitions and programs focused on the intertwined histories of art and science — to take place in fall 2024.
Fathomers will present Emergence: A Genealogy at the Japanese American Community & Cultural Center.
ABOUT PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented series of collaborations among institutions across Southern California. In each, organizations simultaneously present research-based exhibitions and programs that explore and illuminate a significant theme in the region’s cultural history.
In Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, more than 60 cultural institutions joined forces between October 2011 and March 2012 and rewrote the history of the birth and impact of the L.A. art scene. In Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, presented from September 2017 through January 2018, more than 70 institutions collaborated on a paradigm-shifting examination of Latin American and Latinx art, seen together as a hemispheric continuum.
Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty Foundation.