Emergence Catalog: Ten-Volume Collection (Pre-order)
Emergence Catalog: Ten-Volume Collection (Pre-order)
The Emergence catalog is a self-published ten-volume collection based on the exhibition Emergence, which was on view at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Los Angeles as part of Getty’s 2024 PST ART: Art & Science Collide. Approaching synthetic biology through an artistic lens, Emergence unsettled understandings of life, consciousness, and the boundary between natural and synthetic. It was unique among PST ART exhibitions in presenting living biological artworks and projects created by or in collaboration with synthetic biologists and medical researchers.
The catalog is edited by Dr. Yewande Pearse, director of science editorial and content for Emergence, and Stacy Switzer, curator and executive director of Fathomers. It consists of one volume for each of the nine projects in the show, and a tenth volume that connects threads from across the exhibition, with essays by Pearse and Switzer as well as Claire L. Evans, Hideo Iwasaki, Dan Samorodnitsky, and others. Comprising photographs, essays, interviews, poetry, peer-reviewed research papers, and a range of other media, the volumes not only serve as archives of the individual projects but also provide a more expansive exploration of the ideas that inspired them. The catalog was designed by Stephanie Lane Gage and Zhen Lu of Saturated Grey, with digital printing by El Sereno Graphics and risograph printing by Martian Press, all in Los Angeles.
ABOUT THIS COLLECTION
Exhibition Catalog
Genres: Art, Science
Target audience: Scholars, professionals, and others interested in the intersection of art and science
ISBN: 979-8-218-79988-5
Format: 10 paperback volumes in a hardback slipcase
Binding: Perfect-bound
Production: Risograph and digital printing
Finishing: Screen-printed slipcase
Dimensions: 8 × 10 × 2.5 in.
Weight: 5 lbs.
Pages: 440
Print run: 250
Publication date: March 28, 2026
Volumes included:
Connective Tissue
MultiPlanetary Garden
AfroRithm Futures Group: Ahmed Best, Dr. Lonny J. Avi Brooks, and Jade Fabello, in collaboration with Dr. Drew Endy, Jesse Gilbert, Raquel Horsford, Malaya, and Oguri
Crying Organoids
Dr. Marie Bannier Hélaouët, Organoid Group, Hubrecht Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Oncode Institute, The Netherlands; and Dr. Albert Wu, Ophthalmic Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory, Stanford University
IndiGROW
Dr. Callie R. Chappell and Dr. Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong
of kin and bone
Michael Jones McKean, with assistance from Dr. Stephen Fong, Professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University
Apoptotic Bodies
Eduardo Padilha
CyberBiome and MicroPET Prototype
Dr. Pat Pataranutaporn
Floating Future Gardens
Corinne Okada Takara
Pillars of Creation
Henry Tan, Masato Takemura, and collaborators
The Use of Life (in Relation to the Industry of Men)
Tissue Culture & Art Project: Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr
About Emergence
Emergence assembled artists, scientists, and artist-scientists working at the forefront of synthetic biology and contemporary art. Documentation of their projects as well as relevant writings and interviews, planning sketches, and other contextualizing materials are assembled in this catalog. Some contributors draw from their work in medical and transdisciplinary research laboratories, where they confront new categories of life that destabilize our understandings of sentience, hybridity, and artificiality. Others engage the tools of synthetic biology as materials for creative experimentation and studio-based inquiry. Many contributors argue for decolonizing science and expanding access to biotechnologies through DIY and community science initiatives. Across Emergence, audiences and participants are invited to contemplate our human capacities for creation, destruction, recklessness, renewal, and hope. The exhibition prompts us to ask: Who has agency in this moment of making, learning, and living with? What forms of life are we choosing to cultivate? What will we nurture, and what might we leave behind?
Fathomers is a creative research institute dedicated to producing sites and encounters that challenge us to live and act differently in the world. Fathomers cultivates the ideas of diehard dreamers, commissions projects that seem far-fetched, and collaborates with thinkers across disciplines to expand the limits of scale, scope, and support for artist-led projects.
Emergence is part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, presented by Getty.