00:04:39.200And this preference for body materials, I've worked with my own body materials a lot, too.
00:04:45.820And this led me into the world of bioart.
00:04:48.740And so the difference in working with biological science and art is that you're working with living systems.
00:04:56.980And so that's another place where witchcraft intersects with bioart is it's a manipulation of living systems towards a desired outcome.
00:05:05.960So that's where all of these worlds converge for me.0.99
00:05:11.000And it's obviously a very feminist practice.
00:05:15.020And that's sort of the culture that I've worked to foster here in the lab, a really inclusive, intersectional, not just queer friendly, but queer loving vibe, I guess, where we can explore all of these themes of, you know, working with the living world and natural materials towards this future ethic of care.
00:05:45.020for the planet, and for all of the systems on the planet.
00:05:48.520So that's really where we're rooted here.
00:05:52.220And so this is our little bio-art coven.
00:06:39.140So we worked together to set this space up.
00:06:41.360And at first, we weren't sure if it was going to continue because it took a while for the idea of bio art and also this feminist ethic within the biotech world to actually take root here and for people to see it as something that was really important.1.00
00:07:02.660But now you can see around you, we have some pretty amazing women rocking the lab here.1.00
00:17:17.920But I was like, wait a minute, I can go down the hall into the bathroom
00:17:22.620and handle my own blood and there it's not considered a biohazard but here in the lab
00:17:29.720it's considered enough of a risk that i have to sit in this office with you and argue about why
00:17:37.060i don't need to get a shot so that was a really really interesting part of the process and
00:17:42.880that's another that's another layer of ritualistic practice that goes along with
00:17:49.540laboratory practice is this whole bureaucratic stepping like jumping through hoops the paper
00:17:57.200machine yeah so that's something that i'm really interested in resisting it like breaking it down
00:18:04.360understanding what this is about like is is this actually about this is a legit biohazard or is
00:18:09.880this about the fact that this is a woman's body material this is like you know stigmatized and
00:18:21.340it's this whole like ick factor that exists socially and so we we've been really enjoying
00:18:27.280kind of putting this in people's faces a little bit like hey guess what this bacteria has grown
00:18:33.160not imagine yeah so um there's so much and there's so much uh spell work that's already been done
00:18:44.300using menstrual blood you know and it's like it's something that has been known throughout history
00:18:50.820as containing this life force and so we're also interested in that being one of the the co-agents
00:18:58.460in the work that we do you know and there's so much sort of power and ritual around timing with
00:19:06.720the moon that's something that we think about a lot that like the sort of fertility for us in the
00:19:11.720new moon and then yeah shut up to fertility in the new jackie's all about jackie step up to the mic
00:19:19.740whoa get right in there i think uh so yeah fertility is a hot topic for me um i i my work
00:19:30.220has kind of just randomly stumbled upon the issue of fertility uh well akin to the fact that i'm
00:19:38.860transgender and so for transgender women the uh the notion of fertility in the woman's body is
00:19:46.800the, the pinnacle of what it is to be a woman is to have a womb and to menstruate and to be
00:19:55.540fertile in that way. And, uh, as a transgender woman, it's just not, that's not, that's not0.99
00:20:03.840the biological level at which I think about fertility. I think about fertility, there,
00:20:08.540there's two different ways at which I think about fertility now, especially after the work that I've
00:20:14.040been doing. Um, one is that transgender women don't give birth to a child. They give birth to1.00
00:20:22.300themselves. Uh, and then the other, uh, side of it that I've kind of been exploring through my work
00:20:28.960is that, um, basically, uh, for me, when I work with, uh, like living systems or like living
00:20:39.060organisms it's a way of me nurturing and caring and giving towards something um caring for it
00:20:46.360just like a child uh and uh sort of like allowing myself to be fertile and give love and care
00:20:55.260towards another organism and at the end of it you do need to realize that it's a living organism
00:21:00.660and it has its own autonomy and that it's going to do whatever it wants so um just like a child
00:21:07.520So, yeah, that's kind of how I kind of stumbled into fertility.
00:21:16.440And it's a hot topic within transgender issues or the transgender question especially.
00:21:23.680And I think just being how my relation to witchcraft, as a transgender person, we don't really have anywhere else to go in terms of religious institutions.
00:21:34.900um no one else will really have us so it's being a witch is just sort of inherently a part of being
00:21:42.860transgender and so when i'm it's it's amazing to me the fact that i'm able to be a part of
00:21:50.800space and be a part of these communities of women um and some of them haven't been so kind to that0.60
00:21:57.260But I think that it's definitely coming up now where transgender women are being more recognized within the witchcraft community.
00:22:11.220And so, yeah, it's really exciting that we're able to be a part of these communities now.
00:22:15.880Because I think that what's most important about it is that it gives voices to people that see the world from a different perspective.
00:22:23.040um seeing the world as a transgender person um you see parts of the binary that someone within
00:22:31.320the binary can't even fathom um so it's just for me it's a good way of looking at um the world i
00:22:41.720think and it's important to at least hear us out and see what we have to say and that's what i
00:22:46.900really love about the lab especially uh is the fact that like even though i'm a very different
00:22:52.880type of woman um i still am just as like credible as a woman in here especially and uh yeah and i
00:23:01.800think that art and science also mimic that in a lot of ways because um i mean they're two very
00:23:09.320different ways of looking at the world um being like i'm a classically trained artist and my
00:23:14.920practice definitely is more artistic. Um, but I've been a biology nerd for like, since I was
00:23:22.620a kid. So, um, it was only natural that it progressed into this, but I've noticed that
00:23:27.980the two worlds of artists and scientists, they think very differently. Um, and sometimes they
00:23:34.020don't, uh, coincide, but when they do, it, it allows for a really amazing look at how we see
00:23:42.820the world um what we yeah just just issues in the world i think that it's important to look at
00:23:49.560these perspectives and sort of listen to these voices and see what they have to say because it
00:23:54.140yeah you're touching on something that is also it's i mean it's an inherent part of the ethic
00:24:00.880of this lab uh i mean we're working with incubators in here you know and essentially to
00:24:10.360encase and embody and nurture and care for living systems and you know that's that is an expression
00:24:20.880of empathy and care and these perspectives and also the notion of of queering science and
00:24:30.260making uh adding these multiple perspectives is something that is critically important
00:24:36.940to the world right now. Because all of this hyper-categorized thinking and binaries
00:24:45.240have led us down this path of destruction for the planet that we have to do something about.
00:24:52.640And we can only do that by looking from the perspective of the microorganisms,1.00
00:24:58.640looking from the queer perspective, looking from the transgender perspective. These are all really,0.99
00:25:04.520really valuable, um, forms of knowledge that need to no longer be disregarded. And for me,
00:25:13.080that again comes back to witchcraft because, you know, witches are sort of the original
00:25:21.240bio-influencers, you know, witches are the original medicine people. Um, and witches are
00:25:30.160also non-binary completely um so you know we we have to sort of uh assert our multi multiple voices
00:25:41.600in this way to to to get people to wake up and realize that this um really uh specialized like
00:25:50.740boxed in professionalization way of viewing the world and categorizing living systems into these
00:25:56.880separate um boxes is killing us yeah so yeah yeah yeah uh and and i think that that just that just0.99
00:26:08.960comes down to like a very matriarchal um perspective of the archetype of the witch
00:26:15.920it's like it's a woman that is in her power um she's she's able to care and give and nurture0.95
00:26:22.120but she's not being taken from, which is something that the patriarchy has really instilled in women,
00:26:27.340is that they're just capable of just being taken from over and over and over again.
00:26:34.660And I think that in terms of, like, ecology and the way that we think about ecology,
00:26:40.060one of the pinnacles of feminist ecology is the fact that, like, the only reason that we're able to,0.99
00:26:45.500um the only reason that patriarchy has allowed us to take from earth so much is the fact that
00:26:52.300we feminized her and i mean it it's like calling her mother earth um actually signifies in the
00:27:01.600patriarchal mindset that she's someone that you can just take from and take from and take from
00:27:06.020and she wants to give and she wants to give and she needs nothing in return and that's that's so
00:27:11.740wrong because it is it's our duty to give back to her and to care for her as well and to communicate
00:27:18.000with her um so that we know how we can better ourselves in continuity with her so yeah and
00:27:27.420one of the things that i've wanted to promote in this lab from the beginning is empathy as a lab
00:27:36.460technique and that's something that really flies in the face of uh traditional scientific practice
00:27:43.840because you have this whole idea of ethics and bioethics and part of um scientific practice is
00:27:57.240well you have asepsis so asepsis is maintaining this level of sterility and not touching anything
00:28:06.480you don't make contact you don't make contact with your hands or your skin you don't touch
00:28:11.320anything in order to keep a sterile environment but that translates psychologically to a state
00:28:18.460of emotional asepsis and a way of depersonalizing your work and not identifying with it on an
00:28:26.120emotional level just in order to conduct your experiments and sort of feel like you're being
00:28:31.540ethical about it. But I'm really interested in repersonalizing our relationships and
00:28:40.400anthropomorphizing the materials that we work with enough that we can identify with them and
00:28:45.900care for them in a way that they're not just experiments anymore. They are, I'm not going to
00:28:55.380say our collaborators i i wouldn't because we're still controlling the situation and collaboration
00:29:01.720implies a willingness that we don't we can't know if the bacteria is willing or not um but they're
00:29:09.380they're co-agents in our creative process and they are participating in that way and
00:29:14.860to empathize and identify with these things allows us to take a deeper look at our own human behavior
00:29:23.200in the world as well and i think that uh by by fostering this sense of empathy for our materials
00:29:32.040and i'm not you know i'm not saying that scientists don't care about their lab rats and things like
00:29:37.540that because i know scientists who do take very very good care of their animal experiments and
00:29:43.720whatnot but um from an emotional level you know i i like to tell people to talk to their experiment
00:29:52.200Like talk to their bacteria, you know, the same way that you would talk to a plant to help it grow better.
00:30:00.780And by identifying with it as like your child, you're naturally going to take better care of it.
00:30:08.380And that's going to extend out from the lab into the rest of the world and the way our attitudes towards other living systems around us and decentralize the human.
00:30:22.200And the same way that spell casting is often just talking to your environment,
00:30:29.500sort of like gently pulling from your environment the things that you hope to see in your world.
00:30:34.460And I think prayer is often, we're talking to the universe or we're talking to a God figure about ourselves
00:30:43.660and it's a co-creation if we're lucky.
00:30:46.600And I can see the beauty in bringing that into a lab where sometimes the sterility of it can make you the god figure, you know, that can make you the...
00:30:57.840And that touches on this idea of hierarchies.
00:31:01.140And I'm really interested in flattening hierarchies and flattening knowledge hierarchies between science and art because we know that there's a distinct hierarchy there.
00:33:50.040Yeah. I like to refer to one author in particular who has been really influential in my thinking about my work with living systems and unseen agents as well.
00:34:03.400And that's Jane Bennett. And Jane Bennett has written a book called Vibrant Matter.
00:34:09.400And it's sort of a new materialism perspective, but it is acknowledging exactly that the infrastructure that exists that's behind all of the materials that we work with, as well as all of these little forces that are happening.
00:34:30.200And so I think the witch, that's what the witch is already acknowledging.
00:34:34.380You know, you can give it all kinds of academic categorizations.
00:34:41.460Sometimes I refer to feminist materialism.0.95
00:34:44.520But essentially it all comes back to what witches and artists and queer people have been doing all along.0.86
00:34:50.940You can also call it political economy, right?0.96
00:34:52.940Like, it's looking at the sort of social, economic, and material structure that is unseen and is supporting all of our sort of cultural choices.1.00
00:36:10.900And if I can just tell a bit about my background, I'm from textile design and I was working for the last 20 years in fashion.
00:36:19.080It's when I realized that the fashion industry and the textile industry was so polluting.
00:36:24.280So I was thinking about materiality and I wanted to come back to a more meaningful way of thinking about textiles and colors and materiality.
00:36:35.260And I remember when I was reading Cradle to Cradle, you know, this designer, McDonough, and this scientist, Bongrat, they team up together to come back to what we call the Cradle to Cradle and the circularity in designing objects that is not going to affect our surrounding, our environment, and our health.
00:36:58.360and they started to talk a lot about life cycle
00:39:36.420You know, like we call it within the team our babies.
00:39:40.140So the babies are growing, and we got so excited because when you go to, you know, like, you go to buy a T-shirt or any kind of clothing, like, there is no value.
00:39:50.320You know, you pay for very cheap, but there is no value.
00:39:53.200That's why we're talking about disposable fashion these days.
00:39:56.920But when you understand the process of it, and it's why also in my research I like to work about the transparency of the making,
00:40:04.260how what you wear is coming from, how it is dyed,
00:40:08.560which kind of chemicals or not chemicals,
00:40:11.840which kind of processes, which kind of craft.
00:40:14.420And so the clothes you're wearing, there is a bonding, a bigger bonding,
00:40:18.720and there is more value in what you wear.
00:40:22.540Once again, I'm talking about life cycle,
00:40:25.060but all this problem of disposable fashion produce a lot of waste,
00:40:30.720and this weight is very difficult to eliminate.
00:40:33.440So if the color you're using, like in that case, indigo ferra, could be in a way biodegradable,
00:40:42.400it's a way to improve, you know, to respect our mother's health, like you were saying before.
00:40:47.460And the other thing is when we decided to do this blood agar,
00:40:52.760receiving menstrual blood agar, our witch protocol, I was really amazed because during my research,0.78
00:41:00.560Of course, we all know I'm not going to teach anything about that.
00:41:03.720The only thing with growing and growing, because resources, natural resources, are really lowering a lot.
00:41:10.480What is growing is population, you know, human beings.
00:41:14.960And human beings can produce materials.
00:41:17.720So natural materials, biological materials, like hair, like pee, poo, blood.
00:41:36.900And in that way, materiality, witch, art, and science all meet up in this biolab and make a lot of sense to me.
00:41:44.320And to come back to, just to bring this back around to what you were asking about how do you sort of address the patronizing or what have you, this is Vanessa's PhD research.
00:42:01.020And this is really legitimate academic research.
00:42:06.660I'm about to head off to do my Ph.D. in bioart and biodesign,
00:42:11.520and part of the reason I'm going to do my Ph.D. actually
00:42:13.920is just so I can call myself a witch doctor.0.89
00:51:26.580There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between the laboratory and the kitchen, especially when you bring witchcraft into it and, you know, cooking and working with herbs and spell casting and all of these, you know, fluids.